Tuesday 25 May 2010

Romanian Cashpoint Crooks At It Yet Again


A crooked couple, caught by police with nearly one hundred cloned cards they used to raid cashpoints of £1600 in the heart of London’s financial district, were each caged for six months today.

Builder Sorin Vornicu, 22, and cleaner Nicoleta Buziuc, 23, both of Curzon Crescent, Barking, Essex pleaded guilty to conspiring to steal in Ludgate Circus on February 8.

Southwark Crown Court heard the Romanian-born first time offenders were spotted acting suspiciously at various bank cashpoints by a plain-clothed police officer – repeatedly using different cards in a small area.

When stopped 65 blank cloned cards with magnetic strips and four-digit pin numbers printed on them were found on Buziuc along with £1,000 cash.

Inside Vornicu’s underpants police found another 23 similar cloned cards and £600 cash.

Many of the cards were Australian, suggesting a well-planned international fraud, but the defendants insist they were mere “foot soldiers” sent out by organisers who manufactured them.

“This was an extensive and well planned fraud,” Judge Deborah Taylor told the pair, who have been in custody since their arrest, sentencing each of them to six months’ imprisonment.

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