A 46-year-old man from Bacau, Romania may spend decades behind bars for illegally setting up devices on ATMs to capture people’s sensitive banking information and steal their money.
In a statement, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Florida says that Daniel Balan has pleaded guilty to bank fraud and other charges for carrying out an ATM skimming scheme in Tallahassee, Florida.
According to court documents, Balan placed skimming devices and cameras on several ATMs and used these to steal customer account information. He then used the stolen information to siphon $56,340 worth of funds from the victims.
Law enforcement officers eventually found 28 gift cards encoded with stolen account information when he was arrested.
Balan entered a guilty plea to five counts of bank fraud, five counts of aggravated identity theft and one count of possessing 15 or more access devices.
He now faces up to thirty years in prison and five years of supervised release for each bank fraud count, 10 years in prison and five years of supervised release for the possession charge and a consecutive two years in prison and one year of supervised release for each count of aggravated identity theft.
Says U.S. Attorney John P. Heekin,
“This offender exploited numerous innocent victims for his own financial gain, but thanks to the outstanding investigative work of our state and federal law enforcement partners he will enjoy an extended stay behind bars.”
Sentencing will be on December 3rd.
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