By Jeremy Walsh
ATMs were convenient but security cameras were not for a Michigan man and two Romanians busted by police last week on suspicion of installing electronics on a Woodside bank’s cash machines to steal customers’ information, Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said.
Mirel Leahu, 23, of Dearborn Heights, Mich., and Marian Tudor, 32, and Danel Opre, 34, both of Romania, were arraigned Saturday in Queens Criminal Court on charges of burglary, criminal mischief, possession of forgery devices, possession of burglar’s tools, unlawful possession of personal identification information and unlawful possession of a skimmer device.
Each man faces up to seven years in prison if convicted, the DA’s office said. The three were ordered held on $250,000 bail each, the DA said. Their next court date is March 9.
“The defendants are accused of illegally placing card readers known as ‘skimmers’ on the bank’s automated teller machines to steal credit/debit card information from unwitting customers,” Brown said in a statement. “Once a card’s data is captured, the information can then be encoded onto bogus credit cards or be used in any criminal endeavor involving identity theft.”
Just after midnight Feb. 22, a security camera recorded Tudor and Opre entering the HSBC Bank at 51-20 Northern Blvd. with scarves covering their faces, the DA said.
The two men allegedly bent down and began tampering with the bank’s two ATMs, the DA said.
Later that day and the next, cameras caught the two defendants again tampering with the machines, the DA said.
Finally, at 1:15 a.m. Feb. 27, Leahu was observed walking toward the HSBC bank as Tudor and Opre allegedly entered and remained inside the bank, the DA’s office said.
Leahu served as lookout for his accomplices, Brown said, noting he made a call on his cell phone when he allegedly saw an NYPD officer drive toward the bank.
Police found that holes had been drilled into the two ATM machines and that wires protruding from the holes on one of the machines were connected to a skimmer device attached to the bottom of the debit/credit card insert slot on the machine.
Authorities allegedly found a second skimmer device in Opre’s left jacket pocket and a solder device was allegedly found on the ground next to Tudor, Brown said.
Reach reporter Jeremy Walsh by e-mail at jewalsh@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4564.
