If only Marcus Catalin Rosu had kept his cool. The California man's blow-up at an airport car rental eventually led to his arrest for alleged "skimming"—a fraud issue that plagues the ATM industry, the New York Times reports. Authorities say Rosu, 39, had been riding his bike to ATMs and using automated credit card readers to capture vital information, which allowed him to make counterfeit cards and dozens of deposits in his own bank account. Total booty: over $180,000, per a criminal complaint. The investigation began in February when US postal workers spotted a package going from California to Alaska containing 555 magnetic cards; by March, the probe focused on Rosu, who had been convicted in a similar case in Australia in 2010 and caught in a Connecticut skimming incident in 2019.
But investigators couldn't find Rosu—until the incident at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport in Alaska. That's where he apparently turned up late on July 11 and told Enterprise Rent-a-Car agents to give him another customer's car. "Enterprise denied his request and Rosu caused a disturbance which led to the Airport Police responding, identifying and detaining Rosu," the charges say, per Alaska Public Radio. Investigators say a hotel key on the dashboard of his rental led them to find 1,000 blank, magnetic strip cards hidden in the ceiling of his hotel room. Rosu, a Romanian citizen, didn't enter a plea Thursday in Anchorage. A conviction would be a rare win for authorities in what one expert calls "the biggest fraud issue" in the ATM business. (More fraud stories.)
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