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Two of the suspects were allegedly observed on surveillance footage tampering with the ATMs at this Santander bank on Union Turnpike.
By Forum Staff
Two Queens residents have been charged with installing skimming devices on numerous bank Automated Teller Machines (ATMs). All three men are charged with criminal possession of a forged instrument after police seized hundreds of fraudulent credit and debit cards from two residences.
Two of the three defendants were observed on video surveillance placing skimming devices on ATMs between July and September 2017.
The District Attorney identified the defendants as Bogdan Stoica and Janos Mihalka, both 36, of 45th Street in the Woodside neighborhood of Queens, and Marius Adrian Pop, 39, of Elmhurst, Queens.
The three defendants were arraigned on two criminal complaints charging them with second-degree criminal possession of a forged instrument before Queens Criminal Court Judge Ushir Pandit Durant. Defendants Stoica and Mihalka are both additionally charged with criminal possession of forgery devices, first- and second-degree identity theft, petit larceny, fifth-degree criminal possession of stolen property and third-degree unlawful possession of personal identification information.
The judge set bail at $1.5 million bond or $1 million cash and ordered the defendants to return to court on October 17, 2017.
If convicted, the defendants each face up to seven years in prison.
A court-authorized search warrant was executed on a residence on Ketcham Street in Elmhurst, where defendant Pop was present in the third-floor apartment where police allegedly seized nearly 300 forged credit and/or debit cards along with nearly $60,000 in cash.
According to a separate complaint, defendants Stoica and Mihalka were allegedly observed on video surveillance footage at seven different banks installing and, in some instances, attempting to remove skimming devices from the ATMs. Skimmers are devices that read encoded bank card information along with a user’s personal identification information and their PIN codes.
The apparatus records the data that can later be retrieved and copied onto blank credit and debit cards. Defendants Mihalka and Stoica were allegedly observed on surveillance footage tampering with the ATMs at a Santander bank on Union Turnpike on July 20, 2017.
The pair were allegedly captured on video installing or trying to remove skimming devices at a TD Bank on Hillside Avenue on July 21, 2017; at a TD branch on Northern Boulevard on August 2, 2017; at a TD bank on Metropolitan Avenue on August 3, 2017; and at the Teachers Federal Credit Union on August 17, 2017.
The defendants allegedly repeated the skimming scheme at a Capital One bank on Queens Boulevard on August 3rd, September 18th and September 20th of this year. Additionally, the defendants are accused of using a forged card to access a TD bank account of a Queens woman. The complaint details how the defendants allegedly withdrew $383 and $363 of her savings from ATMs on August 17, 2017. Furthermore, according to the complaint a court-authorized search warrant was executed at the 45th Street residence of both Stoica and Mihalka where police allegedly seized nearly 300 forged credit and/or debit cards, two green overlay skimming devices, eight false panel PIN capturing mechanisms, 129 deep-insert metal skimming devices and nearly $20,000 in cash.
If a member of the public suspects their identity may have been stolen, District Attorney Brown recommends possible victims reach out to the three credit reporting bureaus, their local police precinct and to file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission. It is also recommended that any compromised accounts be closed and PINS and passwords changed immediately.
