Forty-eight suspects, including Florin Duduianu, one of Romania’s most wanted underlings, have been arrested in the US (California), accused of installing skimming devices in stores and cloning hundreds of social security cards that low-income families use to make purchases food and baby products. Only for the year 2023, the losses amount to more than $108 million. After cloning the cards, the members of the group bought powdered milk, which was taken to Mexico, where there is a shortage and where they traded with drug cartels.

According to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office in California, 48 members of a criminal group composed of Romanians have been arrested and accused of conducting fraudulent transactions targeting welfare recipients.

The suspects are accused of installing skimming devices in stores, cloning social security cards that low-income families use to buy food and baby products. After receiving the data, members of the group bought, for example, baby formula, exported it to Mexico, where it is in short supply, and then traded with drug cartels.

The victims are single mothers trying to put food on the table

Among those arrested is Florin Duduianu, one of Romania’s most-wanted criminals, who was indicted by a federal grand jury on federal aid fraud charges, District Attorney Todd Spitzer announced.

According to it, the loss caused by the group in the state of California is more than $108 million in state payments allocated in 2023 to low-income families.

• “These are not victimless crimes.
• Victims range from single mothers trying to put food on the table to hard-working people who need help and stand in line at the checkout with shopping bags, only to be humiliated when they discover their account is empty because the thief took everything away. Meanwhile, the thieves use the money to fund organized crime, buy luxury cars worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, and live a life of luxury. (…)
• The State of California must stop these crimes and make the necessary changes to protect the rightful beneficiaries of these funds and protect taxpayers from paying millions of dollars to recover what was stolen,” said the District Attorney.

According to him, as part of the investigation, the prosecutor’s office managed to seize more than $185,000 in cash and 491 cloned social security cards worth $471,360 as of May 1, 2023.

“Don’t love what isn’t yours, you can make it yours”

According to US authorities, all 38 suspects are Romanians, and many of them entered the US illegally.

The leader of the network was Florin Duduianu, who appears on the website of the Romanian police in the “Most Wanted” section.

In social media posts, some of the suspects showed off their luxury cars and expensive watches, even boasting in Romanian: “Don’t love what’s not yours, you can make it yours,” ABC7 Chicago reported.

In Romania, Florin Duduiana was charged with blackmail, robbery and aggravated robbery in a case involving manele singers. charged with blackmail, robbery and aggravated robbery in a case involving Manele singers.

“In the period from October 2017 to July 2020, the accused, known in the social space, with the aim of committing acts of violence, using the reputation provided by belonging to a certain family, by means of violence and threats of committing acts of violence, forced the victims, who commit their activities in the field of music, to transfer significant sums of money to them immediately or in the future and to take part in certain future events free of charge,” prosecutors of the Prosecutor’s Office of the 1st District Court announced in 2020.

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