Two Romanian Nationals Sentenced for Bank Fraud and Aggravated Identity Theft for ATM Skimming Operation

PITTSBURGH, Pa. – Two Romanian nationals have each been sentenced in federal court to 30 months of imprisonment on their convictions of bank fraud and aggravated identity theft, United States Attorney Eric G. Olshan announced today.

United States District Judge Cathy Bissoon imposed the sentences on Laurentiu Stroie, 35, who was residing in New York City, and Cosmin Laurentiu Burlacu, 29, who was living in Indianapolis, Indiana, at the time of the offenses. Both are originally from Brăila, Romania.

According to information presented to the Court, on June 8, 2023, the Ross Township Police Department arrested Burlacu and Stroie after employees of a drug store reported the defendants loitering around an automated teller machine (ATM) located in the store. Employees recognized Burlacu and Stroie from a previous encounter involving a victim who had several unauthorized charges on their credit card at the store and who had reported the fraud to law enforcement.

When first approached by law enforcement, Burlacu presented a New York State driver’s license in his own name, and Stroie presented a Quebec driver’s identification card in another name. A search incident to arrest was conducted on each suspect, with officers finding a hotel card key and numerous gift cards on both defendants. Written on the gift cards were abbreviations associated with financial institutions plus a four-digit number consistent with a personal identification number (PIN).

Officers obtained a search warrant for the hotel room the suspects were sharing and discovered numerous items related to ATM skimming fraud, such as gift cards/prepaid cards, a ledger containing hundreds of bank identification numbers with corresponding bank names, fraudulent identification cards, ATM skimmers, tools for making skimming devices, fabricated ATM panels with pinhole cameras, a log appearing to show addresses and dates of installation of skimming devices, and $6,180 in cash. Almost all of the gift cards found in the hotel room had stickers on them with four-digit numbers, suspected to be PINs.

The United States Secret Service obtained search warrants for the more than 200 gift cards as well as the electronic storage of various devices, including SD cards, found during the search. On the gift cards, the agents discovered Track Data from various federally insured financial institutions. The SD cards revealed video footage of Burlacu installing a pinhole camera on an ATM, as well as of various individuals entering their PIN numbers at ATMs. The SD cards also contained Track Data for approximately 78 ATM cards.

Assistant United States Attorney Brendan T. Conway prosecuted these cases on behalf of the government.

United States Attorney Olshan commended the United States Secret Service, Ross Township Police, and Cranberry Township Police for the investigation leading to the successful prosecution of Burlacu and Stroie.

ATM skimming is a fraud scheme involving the placement of electronic devices, referred to as skimmers, on ATMs to capture and electronically store the information from the magnetic strip of an ATM card, known as Track Data, without the knowledge of the customer or the financial institutions. The scheme also typically employs a small camera, often referred to as a pinhole camera, to capture the PINs of customers making the transactions. The Track Data from the ATM skimmers is then often transferred to the magnetic strips of counterfeit ATM or gift cards, which perpetrators use, along with the PINs obtained through the pinhole cameras, to make withdrawals from ATMs or point-of-sale purchases.