A pair of Romanian nationals will spend time behind bars for installing skimming devices across central Mississippi to steal people’s payment information.
Alexandru Ionut Gheorghe, 28, and Marian Aurelian Neacsu, 29, pleaded guilty in federal court to possessing equipment used to make skimming devices. Skimming devices are phony appliances criminals install on ATMs, gas pumps, or point-of-sale terminals to access consumers’ information.
Beginning in June 2024, the Mississippi Attorney General’s Office Cyber Crime Division started receiving reports from various agencies regarding the discovery of skimming devices at stores in central Mississippi. The scheme is also believed to have spanned locations in Tennessee and Louisiana.
Both men could be seen on surveillance video at unidentified retailers in Mississippi placing skimming devices on point-of-sale machines in June and July 2024. Double-sided tape was used to secure the skimmers and the illegal devices were equipped with electronics that captured or recorded bank card magstripe track data and PINs.
Included in the information skimmed or stolen by the defendants were SNAP benefits totaling over $80,000. The stolen SNAP benefits were used in New Jersey and Pennsylvania and were traced back to the skimming devices in Mississippi, per officials.
Gheorghe and Neacsu are scheduled to be sentenced on April 15. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors
The Secret Service and the Mississippi Attorney General’s Office continue to investigate the case through their partnership in the Cyber Fraud Task Force with assistance from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Office of Inspector General. Assistant U.S. Attorney Kimberly T. Purdie is prosecuting the case.
