Three members of a credit card skimming operation have been sentenced to significant prison terms after targeting retail customers across the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Gheorge-Ciprian Hilitanu, Victor Tecu, and Ionut Firan-Alexandrau pleaded guilty to multiple felonies, having stolen financial information from at least 783 victims in July 2025.
The Texas Financial Crimes Intelligence Center led the investigation, uncovering that the defendants installed concealed skimming devices on payment terminals at CVS and Walgreens locations. These devices captured debit and credit card information, allowing the criminals to create counterfeit cards and make unauthorized purchases.
Following their arrests, law enforcement executed a search warrant at an Airbnb, recovering over 150 skimming devices, 237 re-encoded gift cards, and 25 fraudulent identification cards. Hilitanu was sentenced to 30 years in prison, while Tecu and Firan-Alexandrau received 20-year sentences each.
