Romica Martuica, Card Skimming, Iowa 2020

Card Skimming Ring Busted in Iowa

A Romanian man who used over fifty counterfeit debit or credit cards containing ‘skimmed’ account information at an ATM in Hiawatha, Iowa, was sentenced to more than three years in federal prison. Romica Martuica, age 21, from Romania, was handed the prison term after a guilty plea to illegal transactions with an access device and aggravated identity theft.

Martuica entered the United States illegally in 2016. On February 16, 2019, Hiawatha police officers arrested him at an ATM. At the time of his arrest, Martuica and two individuals with him had more than ninety counterfeit cards in their possession. These cards contained account information that had been acquired by card ‘skimmers,’ which are devices placed on ATMs or other point-of-sale machines to capture credit or debit card information.

Martuica made or attempted over seventy transactions at the ATM using these cards and successfully withdrew $8,685 before the police arrived. He was sentenced in Cedar Rapids by United States District Court Judge C.J. Williams to 42 months’ imprisonment. He was also ordered to make $8,685 in restitution to victims of the offense.

Martuica must also serve a three-year term of supervised release after the prison term. There is no parole in the federal system. Martuica is being held in the United States Marshal’s custody until he can be transported to a federal prison.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Kyndra Lundquist and investigated by Homeland Security Investigations and the Hiawatha Police Department.

Court file information is available at https://ecf.iand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl. The case file number is 19-cr-62.

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Source: https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndia/pr/romanian-man-sentenced-over-three-years-federal-prison-card-skimming-offenses