FT. LAUDERDALE, Fla. Three Romanian men were arrested and three more are being sought in a debit-card skimming operation that siphoned funds from more than 400 credit union and bank accounts.
Authorities say the men skimmed card information from MidFlorida CU and Citibank ATMs in 12 Florida cities including Plantation, Naples, West Palm Beach, Delray Beach, Bal Harbour, Lauderdale-by-the-Sea and St. Petersburg.
Investigators identified the group by using a confidential informant and by tracking the geographical coordinates of one suspect’s cellphone, according to court records. They also watched surveillance video from the compromised ATMs, got a court-authorized GPS tracker installed on the suspect’s Porsche, and conducted surveillance on other suspects.
Agents also searched Facebook where they found profiles for four of the men, some of them using aliases.
The six charged are: Aris Chicio, 23, 23, Eugen Bacelan, 29, and Maurizio Margel, 19, Neamtu Vaduva, 21, Alin Velcu, 24, and Antonio Dumitru, 19.
Chiciu, Vaduva, Bacelan and Dumitru were all arrested between 2005 and 2012 for entering the U.S. illegally from Mexico, according to the court records.
