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Cleveland resident Maya Florina Luzia DeSteffano, also known as Maya-Luisa Pastorella or “Maria” pleaded guilty in Hartford federal court to conspiracy and identity theft charges stemming from ATM skimming activity that defrauded banks.
Between February and June in 2017, a bank in Connecticut reported 35 incidents of ATM skimming incidents in Stratford, Monroe, Trumbull, Greenwich, Fairfield and elsewhere in Connecticut.
U.S Attorney John Durham said that as part of the scheme, members of the conspiracy placed skimming devices at the ATMs to capture account numbers and PIN numbers from customers who used their debit cards at the ATMs while the devices were in place.
Conspiracy members then used the captured information to make substitute ATM cards, and obtained money and made purchases using those cards. In total, DeSteffano and her co-conspirators made approximately $286,069.
Durham said that by pleading guilty, DeSteffano admitted that she installed and removed ATM skimming equipment at several locations, and used re-encoded cards and PINs to obtain money from several bank locations. She also admitted that, in December 2017, she participated in ATM skimming activities in Virginia and Maryland and, in September and October last year, she participated in skimming activity Georgia. The banks targeted in those schemes suffered total losses of more than $191,000.
DeSteffano was arrested in Cleveland on Dec. 14 last year. She’s been detained since her arrest. DeSteffano pleaded guilty to one count each of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and aggravated identity theft, and will face up to 30 years in prison. She’s scheduled to be sentenced on Nov. 22.
On Aug. 23, George Dragusin, a co-conspirator of DeSteffano pleaded guilty to the same charges. Dragusin, a citizen of Romania, also admitted that, between March and September last year, he participated in ATM skimming activity in Nevada, Illinois, Ohio, Indiana and California, causing multiple banks to suffer total losses of more than $645,000. He is detained pending sentencing.
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