Three European nationals pleaded guilty to stealing thousands of dollars from low-income Southern Californian residents.
The widespread theft involved using ATM card skimmers to make counterfeit cards and steal funds from electronic benefit transfer (EBT) accounts, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
EBT cards allow recipients to access benefits from CalFresh, CalWORKs, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and more.
The suspects were identified as:
- Ionut Calciu, 31, of Romania
- Florian Serban, 51, of Romania
- Mohamed Hichem El Mabrouk, 35, of France
The investigation began in February and involved around 70 law enforcement officers monitoring ATM locations across the Los Angeles region in connection with cash withdrawals using stolen EBT accounts.
“Authorities made arrests after determining that the suspects making withdrawals at the ATMs were not entitled to access funds that had been deposited into accounts belonging to legitimate EBT beneficiaries,” prosecutors said.
In his plea agreement, Calciu admitted to stealing at least $31,000 from EBT bank accounts. Serban acted as the driver and lookout while Calciu made the illegal ATM withdrawals, court documents said. Both are scheduled for an Aug. 29 sentencing hearing.
On Feb. 1, El Mabrouk illegally withdrew $25,480 from EBT accounts and the next day, stole an additional $2,420 from EBT accounts through ATM withdrawals. El Mabrouk and an unidentified accomplice were found with at least 32 fraudulently encoded EBT cards, prosecutors said. His sentencing hearing is scheduled on Sept. 5.
“The investigation has revealed that the fraudulent withdrawal of these benefits is done with ‘cloned’ cards, which are debit cards, gift cards or other devices with magnetic strips that have been encoded with information from legitimate EBT cards,” prosecutors said. “Law enforcement believes at least some of those involved in the fraudulent withdrawals also possessed ‘skimming’ devices that could be used to record personal identification information from victims.”
On May 9, each suspect pleaded guilty to one count of unauthorized use of access devices, a felony that carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison.
All three have remained in custody since Feb. 2.
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