News

Romanian man gets five years for ATM scheme

April 15, 2008

The Associated Press:A man in Pittsburgh identified by the FBI as part of a Toronto-based Romanian organized crime ring was sentenced to more than five years in prison for skimming bank-account information from some 400 customers of Fifth Third Bank and KeyBank. He was charged with skimming information from accountholders at ATMs in Pennsylvania and Ohio. Vasili Ciocan, 30, has been incarcerated since he and another man were indicted by a federal grand jury last May, a few weeks after witnesses saw them acting suspiciously near an ATM. Government wiretaps and records show Ciocan was a key player in the ATM-skimming operation run by a Romanian syndicate in Canada that also was involved in kidnapping, extortion and other crimes. Ciocan had previously been charged by police in Sylvania Township, Ohio, a suburb of Toledo, with stealing more than $53,000 from ATM customers there.