2 plead guilty to 'skimming' from Atlanta ATMs

By Marcus K. Garner

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Two Romanian men pleaded guilty to "skimming" nearly $200,000 from Atlanta area Washington Mutual ATMs.

From fall 2007 to July 2008, Marius Enache Csapay, 45, and Romulus Bacian, 40, are accused of attaching equipment to ATMs that would automatically record a bank customer's debit card number.

Both men pleaded guilty to aggravated identity theft, conspiracy, and access device fraud.

Court authorities said the men, along with co-conspirators Gabriel Cirlan and Nicolae Drasovian, installed cameras above the ATM keyboards to record as the customer typed in the card's personal identification number or password.

The suspects would collect the camera and skimmer at the end of each day and coordinate the account data with the passwords.

Cirlan encoded stolen, unactivated American Express gift cards with the skimmed bank account information and used them to make cash withdrawals, court officials said.

Lawrenceville police caught Csapay, Bacian and Drasovian while they were trying to remove skimming equipment from an ATM on July 26, 2008.

Bacian and Csapay were arrested, and Cirlan was subsequently arrested in Tennessee. He remains in custody there on unrelated federal identity theft charges.

Drasovian remains at large, court officials said, and is believed to be in Romania.

Sentencing has not been scheduled, but Bacian and Csapay could face up to 22 years in prison, followed by deportation from the United States.