Romanian man in U.S. illegally installed card-skimming devices in 3 states, feds say

A Romanian man who according to court documents conspired with others to install card-skimming devices on ATMs in multiple states has been sentenced to one year in prison and is expected to be deported after his release. Danut Urseiu, 32, pleaded guilty in May in federal court in Cincinnati to a bank fraud conspiracy charge. The sentence was handed down Nov. 18. According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the Cincinnati-area charges against Danut Urseiu relate to a two-week spree in early 2023, when card-reading devices were installed on nine ATMs in Cincinnati, Green Township and Liberty Township. But federal prosecutors in Michigan say Urseiu and his foreign national co-conspirators stole information from thousands of people in multiple states. The crime spree resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses. According to court documents, a card-skimmer at an ATM can collect account numbers and personal identification numbers when a person uses their card. A concealed camera above the keypad captures the PIN, to correlate the card data with the PIN. The information is then re-encoded on the magnetic strip of other cards, including gift cards, the documents say. Those fraudulent cards can be used to withdraw cash at ATMs or make purchases. When Urseiu was arrested in Royal Oak, Michigan last year, police found 62 gift cards in his pockets and another 192 gift cards in the vehicle he was driving, documents say. Man in U.S. illegally Urseiu entered the U.S. illegally in January 2023, according to court documents. In February 2023, he was seen on surveillance video in Liberty Township installing card-skimming and video devices on at least one ATM. In total, an unnamed financial institution reported more than 3,900 compromised credit card or debit card numbers at 23 ATMs, according to court documents. In March of 2023, Urseiu and several co-conspirators were arrested in Monroe County, New York for allegedly installing skimmers on ATMs in that area. Urseiu was then arrested by immigration authorities, and an immigration judge ordered him deported to Romania, court documents say. He was deported in May 2023, but approximately three months later returned to the U.S. illegally. His conviction in the Cincinnati-area case is his third since 2024. According to court documents, Urseiu was convicted in Michigan of identity theft and related state charges in May 2024. He was sentenced to 122 days. After being released, he was charged in federal court in Detroit with unlawfully re-entering the U.S. He pleaded guilty to that charge and was sentenced to 10 months in prison.