Today, Attorney General Lynn Fitch announced the sentencing in federal court of Romanian national Bogdan Gabriel Radu on one count of Illegal Possession, Production, or Trafficking in Device-Making Equipment for placement of skimmer devices on credit card readers. This case was investigated by the Mississippi Attorney General’s Office and prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Mississippi.
It is estimated that disruption of this crime group prevented more than $37.6 million in potential fraud losses. Radu is the third and final defendant to be sentenced in this card skimming scam case.
“This scheme reached across state lines to steal sensitive financial information using skimmer devices attached to the credit card readers we use in stores every day," said Attorney General Lynn Fitch. "Thanks to the diligent work of our Cyber Fraud Task Force, we were able to stop all three Romanian nationals from stealing Mississippi taxpayer dollars intended for our some of our State's most vulnerable citizens."
On August 12, 2025, Judge David C. Bramlette III of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi sentenced Radu to 15 months in the custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons and ordered him to pay a total of $85,640 in restitution for stolen SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) benefits. Upon release, he will be deported from the United States.
Radu, 23, could be seen on surveillance video at various stores throughout Mississippi placing skimmer devices on card-reading machines. Stolen data that can be traced back to the skimmer devices in Mississippi was used as far away as New Jersey and Pennsylvania. These included SNAP benefits, which provide financial assistance to low-income families to supplement their grocery budgets.
In June 2024, the Attorney General’s Office began receiving reports about the discovery of skimmer devices at various stores in central Mississippi. These devices are slipped over credit card readers at stores we use every day and are used to steal financial information from cards swiped on them. The Attorney General’s Cyber Fraud Task Force began investigating leads that would ultimately determine the location of more than 15 installed skimmers throughout Mississippi, Tennessee, and Louisiana.
Mississippians can guard against skimmer devices accessing their card information by using tap pay or chip read terminals and avoiding card swipes, if possible. Consumers should also pay attention to the look of the card reader. Skimmer devices like those used here fit over the reader, making it look different and even larger than other devices and may even pull off if lifted from the corners of the reader.
