Facial recognition data obtained from video taken at a Coral Gables bank helped lead to the arrest of a Romanian national suspected of participating in a Florida fraud ring, authorities said.
Police took Laurentiu Urziceanu, 34, of Calafat, Romania, into custody on three felony charges on Wednesday. According to an arrest warrant, he’s in the country illegally.
Records show he was convicted of nearly two dozen felonies in Colorado federal court in 2017 in a case involving bank and ATM fraud, receiving a five-year sentence and three years of supervised release.
Authorities said Urziceanu, also known by the alias “Brazovics Balazs Peter,” was supposed to have left the U.S. under the terms of his release.
Instead, authorities say he went back to committing crime. New York State Police arrested Urziceanu and another Romanian on Nov. 10, 2023 after they said they installed a skimmer at an ATM at an upstate Family Dollar. Troopers caught the pair at another Family Dollar in a nearby town, having installed another skimmer, according to the agency.
Urziceanu is now behind bars in South Florida after Coral Gables police said he was caught on camera at the Synovus Bank at 121 Alhambra Plaza removing a suspected skimming device on the evening of April 18, 2023.
Authorities said a co-conspirator used his body to obscure what was happening from the sidewalk and to act as a lookout.
The arrest warrant states that the two returned the next morning and Urziceanu installed a new skimmer and a pinhole camera. Authorities said he held cash and pretended to conduct a transaction during the crime; the bank later discovered and removed the skimmer.
Surveillance images processed through facial recognition software matched Urziceanu, police said, and Colorado federal prosecutors later confirmed it was him.
Synovus Bank investigators told police that they believe Urziceanu is “part of an ATM skimmer fraud group that has been active throughout Central and South Florida,” the warrant states.
According to police, he has active warrants out of Lake County and from the U.S. Marshals Service.
As of Thursday, Urziceanu was jailed in the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center on two counts of attempted unlawful use of a scanning device and one count of organized scheme to defraud.
Jail records show he’s being held on a $250,000 bond, the aforementioned Lake County warrant and an immigration detainer.
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