Sentencing is scheduled Tuesday for a Romanian national who traveled to the United States for the apparent purpose of participating in an organized scheme to steal public assistance funds intended for indigent Los Angeles residents.
Cristian Chimerel pleaded guilty in July to a single federal count of bank fraud. He was arrested last February at a U.S. Bank automated teller machine in Tarzana after fraudulently withdrawing $7,240 in cash from victims’ accounts, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Chimerel was able to access the taxpayer funds because he and his accomplices had obtained electronic benefit transfer account information by placing “skimming” devices and cameras on ATMs or other point-of-sale devices to surreptitiously capture or record account information, prosecutors said.
He then “cloned” the account information captured by the skimming devices onto debit, credit or gift cards by altering information on those cards.
When law enforcement arrested Chimerel, he possessed 30 debit, credit or gift cards that had been cloned with victims’ account information. All of the cloned cards had stickers on them bearing each account owner’s personal identification number, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Investigators determined that the defendant stole nearly $130,000, and intended to take nearly $170,000, in benefits belonging to 193 indigent victims in the months preceding his arrest.
Prosecutors wrote in court papers that Chimerel had been convicted of a related offense in 2018 and deported, only to re-enter the country illegally in 2022 “for the apparent purpose of defrauding low-income Californians.”
According to sentencing papers, Chimerel came to the United States in March 2022 from England, where he claims to have run a successful merchandise transport business.
“Soon after entering the United States, however, defendant began targeting the most indigent and financially vulnerable in our society — recipients of food stamps and related benefits for low-income Californians — for his own enrichment,” according to papers filed in Los Angeles federal court. “In doing so, defendant deprived individual victims of funds they expected to receive and depended on to meet their basic needs.”
While the state eventually reimbursed 193 individual victims for their losses, the process takes time. In the meantime, victims were deprived of funds they depend on to pay for food and shelter. One victim, identified by the initials F.B., for instance, was unable to pay rent for herself and her six children and feared eviction, according to federal prosecutors.
The government is recommending that Chimerel be sentenced to a term of 33 months’ imprisonment, a five-year term of supervised release, and $129,380 in restitution. Prosecutors wrote that Chimerel will likely be deported following whatever prison term he receives.
At least 65 people — nearly all connected to Romania — have been arrested or charged on suspicion of theft involving forged electronic benefit transfer cards in Southern California since last spring, officials said.