The investigation revealed that in one day the suspects visited 85 churches.
Photo: jeffjacobs1990 / Pixabay
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) announced this week the arrest of four men facing Charges for stealing donation checks from 636 churches in that and other states of the country worth about $ 740,000 dollars.
So far, “Operation Thou Shalt Not Steal” has managed to the arrest of four individuals, all Orlando residents.
Ionut Raducan, 33 years old; Marius Dumitru, 27; Marius Dumitru (also known as Viorel Dumitru), 34; and Pananit Dumitru, 32, are in the custody of the authorities.
Police try to find the whereabouts of a man and a woman, Catalin and Simona Trandafir, aged 45 and 39, respectively, for their alleged connection to the robbery scheme.
“This low-tech, but well-organized effort to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations by mail– at a time when donations were sorely needed – was paralyzed. I appreciate the commitment of our investigators, analysts, the Cape Coral Police Department and the Office of Statewide Prosecution in putting these criminals behind bars, ”said FDLE Commissioner Rick Swearingen as quoted by Click Orlando.
The suspects, who they lived in the same residence on Villano avenue, stole donations from churches in Florida and other states. It is unclear in which other states the criminal network operated.
Investigation began last December in Cape Coral
The investigation began last December when Cape Coral agents discovered that donations to 24 different churches had been stolen. From there, inquiries began in Alachua, Lake, Marion, Orange, Polk, Seminole, and Volusia.
The defendants, all Romanian citizens, are charged with moving to churches and stealing donations from mailboxes.
85 churches in one day
The investigation revealed that in one day the suspects visited 85 churches.
FDLE said the thieves used different pseudonyms to deposit checks from multiple bank accounts and would immediately go to withdraw the funds at ATMs once the money was available. So that the banks did not mark the transactions as suspicious, the money was often transferred to accounts in Romania.
Suspects have stolen more than 1,500 checks addressed to churches
Under this scheme, the defendants would have stolen more than 1,500 checks. The aforementioned agency specified that 355 of the 636 affected churches are located in Florida.
The defendants face charges of conspiracy to commit racketeering, racketeering, grand theft, money laundering and illegal possession of personal identification.
