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The man who federal prosecutors said led the operation – 31-year-old Marius Vintila– was arraigned on Tuesday after being extradited from Sweden.
The government said Vintila, also known as “Dan Girneata,” fled the country last July as federal agents rounded up his soldiers and upper-level associates. Vintila was caught in Sweden on Sept. 24 and extradited to the U.S. last month.
A six-count indictment returned in U.S. District Court in Newark accuses him of conspiracy to commit bank fraud, aggravated identity theft and conspiracy to possess counterfeit access devices, among other charges involving what U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman said was one of the largest operations of its kind ever uncovered by law enforcement.
According to Fishman, the crew members defrauded Wells Fargo, Citibank, TD Bank and various other financial institutions in Bergen, Essex and Passaic counties, and New York, Connecticut and Florida by installing skimmers and pinhole cameras at bank ATMs in order to steal thousands of customer bank account numbers and PIN codes in 2012 and early last year.
The electronic devices collected identity and account information from the ATM card’s magnetic strip, while the pinhole camera secretly recorded customers’ keystrokes as they entered their PINs.
The victimized banks included the Citibank branch on Engle Street in Englewood.
Co-leader Bogdan Radu, 31, of Queens, admitted on Wednesday that he helped create the homemade skimming devices and taught others how to install them on bank ATMs.
Also on Wednesday, a federal judge sentenced 53-year-old Constantin Ginga to 57 months in prison and two years of supervised release in exchange for his guilty pleas to conspiracy to commit bank fraud and aggravated identity theft in connection with the crew.
Another co-defendant, Marius Cortiga, pleaded guilty on Feb. 25 to a single count of bank fraud conspiracy.
Four months ago, two crew members — Ioan Leusca, also known as “Ionel Spinu,” and 29-year-old Dezso Gyapias, also known as “Valentin Folea” — admitted their roles in the operation.
Several others, many of them Romanian nationals who lived in and around Queens, have been charged, as well.
Crew members used hats, jackets, scarves and sunglasses to disguise themselves while installing the devices and while using the cards to withdraw money, the government said.
Vintila admitted that he and his co-conspirators used the stolen information to create bogus ATM cards, which they used to withdraw millions.
Vintilla said he stored the contents of an entire skimming operation, including skimming devices, pinhole cameras, super glue, tape, SD cards, batteries, computers, molds, fraudulent ATM cards, and cash proceeds, in various self-storage unites.
Cotiga and Ginga, meanwhile, admitted they and others stole approximately $985,000 from Citibank ATMs in New Jersey, New York and Connecticut.
Fishman praised special agents of the U.S. Secret Service’s Newark Field Office, along with special agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) in Newark. He also thanked Englewood police for assisting in Ginga’s arrest.
Handling the case for the government are Assistant U.S. Attorneys Rahul Agarwal and David Eskew of Fishman’s Criminal Division in Newark.
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