HOUSTON – A card skimming scheme that targeted ATM users at stores in the Houston area, revealed in a police search warrant, means hundreds of innocent people living in Harris County may have had their card information stolen.
The group of four suspects allegedly crossed the border from Canada into Vermont and cut off their court-ordered GPS ankle monitors before placing credit card skimmers at several locations while temporarily staying in Houston, according to court documents.
At least one of the suspects has a criminal history in other countries, according to investigators.
A home rented as an Airbnb in the Sunnyside neighborhood on Cannon Street was considered the home base for the group’s operations, according to the search warrant. Inside, investigators found a “skimmer manufacturing lab,” a spokesperson for the Baytown Police Department said.
According to charging documents, the crimes are related to Romanian crime families. Investigators believe they are a highly organized criminal organization that doesn’t stay in the same state or even country for very long.
“In recent cases investigated by the FCIC (Financial Crimes Intelligence Center), these groups have frequently utilized Airbnb rentals and Turo rental cars. Turo is a car rental service where individuals can rent their personally owned vehicles to make money. In Captain Headley’s experience, if one of the members of their ‘crew’ is approached or apprehended by law enforcement, the rest of the team will immediately return to the temporary housing, remove all evidence, and flee the jurisdiction they are in,” Baytown detective B. Turner wrote in a probable cause affidavit.
When the group set up shop in Houston, days before the first card skimmer was discovered in October, one of the suspects went to a Pasadena car dealership. According to court papers, he allegedly used $15,000 in cash and a fake Italian passport to purchase a 2018 Nissan Murano.
That Murano was later seen on surveillance cameras as the suspects placed skimmers at ATMs inside stores all over the Houston area.
Investigators connected the Murano to skimmers found at these seven locations:
- Walgreens, 1801 Texas Ave., La Marque
- CVS, 2902 Palmer Hwy, Texas City
- Walgreens, 7216 Garth Road, Baytown
- Walgreens, 3920 Garth Road, Baytown
- Walgreens, 2000 Garth Road, Baytown
- Walgreens, 11633 Shadow Creek Parkway, Pearland
- Walgreens, 4016 SH 3, Dickinson
During the investigation, the Texas Financial Crimes Intelligence Center put out a crime bulletin on the Murano.
As the crew was being watched and tracked, an officer from the Pearland Police Department spotted it near a Walgreens off-Broadway in Pearland on Nov. 3.
After the suspects left the Walgreens, Pearland police pulled them over. Two of the suspects, Marius Constantin Tica and Dumitru Catalin Licsor, were in the car.
Police found them with 379 cards that had altered magnetic strips, believed to have stolen information from skimmed cards, along with a tool to extract “Deep Insert” skimmers, and a device to download victim card information. They also found more than $14,000 in cash, according to court papers.
Tica and Licsor got booked into the Brazoria County Jail. Tica, charged with engaging in organized criminal activity and fraudulent use or possession of credit or debit card information, is being held on a $25 million bond. Licsor, charged with the same, has an $8 million bond.
On the same day of their arrest, other investigators kept an eye on the Airbnb in Sunnyside.
That’s when two other suspects pulled up and parked in the driveway. They allegedly gave police fake Italian passports but were later identified as Gabriel Alin Bulmaci and Alexandru-Jean Marcu.
Detectives then got a search warrant for the Airbnb and a Turo rental 2023 Jeep Grand Cherokee, revealing a “skimmer building workshop in the living room.”
They seized multiple completed skimmers and materials to build dozens more, more than $12,000 in cash, and more than 400 prepay gift cards which investigators believe are cloned with stolen data from skimmed cards, according to court papers.
Records show Bulmaci and Marcu were charged in Harris County with fraudulent use or possession of card information and unlawful interception, use, or disclosure of electronic information. Neither appear to have been arrested on those charges, according to court and jail records.
The Harris County District Attorney’s Office filed a request for each of them to be held on a $20 million bond because they allegedly ripped off their ankle monitors when they crossed the Canadian border into Vermont, they’re not U.S. citizens, and they potentially affected so many people living in Harris County.
Investigators from the Baytown Police Department, which led the investigation, didn’t share additional details because they said it’s an ongoing investigation.