Three members of an organized credit card skimming ring have been sentenced to lengthy prison terms after placing skimming devices at retail stores across the Dallas-Fort Worth area, the Dallas County Criminal District Attorney's Office announced.
Gheorge-Ciprian Hilitanu, Victor Tecu and Ionut Firan-Alexandrau each pleaded guilty to multiple felonies in a scheme that prosecutors said targeted CVS and Walgreens customers across North Texas in July 2025 and stole the financial information of at least 783 victims.
The investigation was led by the Texas Financial Crimes Intelligence Center, which found that the defendants installed hidden skimming devices on store payment terminals to secretly capture debit and credit card information. A skimming device is a concealed electronic device placed on or inside a payment terminal that records the data on a card's magnetic strip when it is swiped. Criminals use the stolen information to create counterfeit cards or make unauthorized purchases, often before victims notice.
After the arrests, agents executed a search warrant at an Airbnb where the group was staying and recovered evidence of a large-scale operation, including more than 150 skimming devices, 237 re-encoded gift cards loaded with stolen account information, 25 fraudulent international identification cards and passports bearing multiple identities, and equipment used to manufacture counterfeit payment cards. A forensic review of the seized devices identified 783 unique victims.
On June 25, 2026, Hilitanu entered an open plea before Judge Lela Mayes, who sentenced him to 30 years in prison for engaging in organized criminal activity and fraudulent possession or use of a credit or debit card, along with 20 years for tampering with a governmental record and unlawful use of a wire or electronic communication. On June 29, Tecu and Firan-Alexandrau each pleaded guilty and were sentenced to 20 years in prison.
