5 Europeans, in the country illegally, stole funds meant for low-income L.A. families, U.S. says

Five men were arrested in Los Angeles on suspicion of using counterfeit electronic benefit transfer cards to fraudulently withdraw funds intended to provide essential food and financial aid to low-income families.

All five men are in the United States without authorization and are accused of collectively possessing more than 160 counterfeit EBT cards at the time of their arrests, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. The men are Marcel Musat, 53, of Romania; Ionut Calciu, 31, of Romania; Florian Serban, 51, of Romania; Wesley David Adrian Dimoua-Moua, 36, of France; and Hichem Mohamed El Mabrouk, 35, of France.

“These defendants who are illegally in the United States targeted and stole from some of the poorest members of our community,” acting U.S. Atty. Joseph T. McNally said in a statement. “This fraudulent activity has contributed to significant financial losses, undermining an essential lifeline for struggling families.”

The men are accused of creating cloned cards, which are debit cards, gift cards or other devices with magnetic strips that have been encoded with information from legitimate EBT cards. Some of the men were also in possession of skimming devices that are installed on ATMs to capture card data and record cardholders’ PIN entries, prosecutors allege.

They are accused of obtaining as much as $25,480 from fraudulent withdrawals of CalFresh and CalWORKs benefits and are each charged with one count of use of unauthorized access devices — or counterfeit EBT cards.

EBT fraud is a rampant problem in California. The amount the men are accused of stealing is just a drop in the bucket of the total that goes missing every year.

The California Department of Social Services detected more than $126.8 million stolen from victims’ cards in 2024, according to court documents. In Los Angeles County, officials say more than $19.6 million in EBT benefits were stolen in 2022.

The men were caught through a coordinated law enforcement operation Sunday in which more than 70 officers monitored ATM locations across the Los Angeles area to identify individuals making withdrawals using information from stolen EBT cards.

“This successful operation targeted transnational criminal organizations that have been stealing from our less fortunate neighbors and the taxpayers,” said John Pasciucco, a special agent with Homeland Security Investigations Los Angeles. “HSI Los Angeles and our partners will work day and night to ensure that this help continues to be available to those who need it most, and not in the pockets of greedy criminals.”

In 2023, the Los Angeles Police Department arrested 13 Romanian nationals believed to be part a Romanian syndicate known to target people experiencing economic hardship for their EBT cards. Calciu, one of the men arrested in Sunday’s bust, was previously convicted of aggravated robbery in Romania, prosecutors said.