UPDATE at 22.45: The Romanian whose luxury cars will be sold by the state is the one who was caught in Italy. It is about Alexandru Stoica, the son of Dacian Stoica, the author of the “heist of the century” from 1996, Libertatea sources said.
In October 2020, US judicial authorities indicted members of a criminal group suspected of cloning bank cards, operating in Miami, USA, of which Alexandru Stoica was also a member. The Bucharest Court issued the preventive arrest warrant in May 2021, and the man has since been wanted by the Police.
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Original news: A 34-year-old man from Bucharest, wanted internationally in the Most Wanted category, after the Bucharest Court issued a preventive arrest warrant in his name for money laundering, was caught in Italy. Currently, procedures are being carried out to bring Romania, the Romanian Police announced in a press release.
“Following the continuation of international police cooperation activities, between the Romanian Police and similar authorities from other states, a national and international wanted man was located and caught, on the territory of Italy,” the Romanian Police announced on Tuesday, in a statement.
In the name of the man, on May 31, 2021, the Bucharest Court issued a preventive arrest warrant, for money laundering, file instrumented by DIICOT-Structura Centrală.
Next, on the territory of Italy, specific activities are carried out in order to hand over the man to Romania.
Why is he accused?
DIICOT announced, on May 6, 2021, that eight home searches were carried out, at the residences of a person suspected of money laundering.
“In the case it was noted that, in October 2020, the judicial authorities in the United States of America sent to court the members of an organized criminal group, of which a Romanian citizen was also a part, a group specialized in committing computer crimes, i.e. illegal operations with computer devices or programs, falsification of credit titles or payment instruments and fraudulent financial operations”, DIICOT announced at the time.
According to DIICOT, “from the investigations carried out by the judicial authorities in the United States of America, it emerged that, between March 2019 and June 2020, the Romanian citizen together with the other members of the group carried out activities of installing skimming devices at ATMs from the radius of the city of Miami Beach, the extraction of bank card data, the forgery of payment instruments and the fraudulent withdrawal of sums of money from the accounts of the injured persons”.
Part of the sums of money obtained in this way were transferred by the suspect to the territory of Romania, in order to hide their illicit origin.
“The suspect hid the origin of these sums of money, by entrusting them to different people, for the purpose of later use to satisfy some personal needs and by purchasing, through intermediaries, a number of 5 luxury cars. Following the searches, the 5 cars, with a value of approximately 840,000 euros, were seized, which will be handed over to the National Agency for the Administration of Forfeited Assets, as well as 15 mobile phones, 3 laptops, a tablet, 3 bank cards, 3 memory cards, 2 SIM cards, 7 memory sticks, 2 HDDs, several documents and several sums of money”, said the DIICOT prosecutors.
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