{"id":130577,"date":"2026-02-11T22:45:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T22:45:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/130577\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T22:45:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T22:45:09","slug":"international-fugitive-back-in-us-to-face-charges-in-2022-hit-and-run-death-of-74-year-old-nyc-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/130577\/","title":{"rendered":"International fugitive back in US to face charges in 2022 hit-and-run death of 74-year-old NYC man"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Romanian fugitive is back in the Big Apple to face charges in the cowardly hit-and-run death of a 74-year-old Queens man <\/a>more than three years ago.<\/p>\n

Florin Stoian, 30, was extradited back to the US after serving a three-year prison stint in Germany for pickpocketing \u2014 one of a slew of international crimes that made him a wanted man by the worldwide law enforcement agency, Interpol, law enforcement sources told The Post. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhether you run across the street or you run across the globe, as was in this case, the New York City Police Department\u2019s not gonna stop,\u201d NYPD Lt. Jag Singh, head of the department\u2019s Highway District Collision Investigation Squad told reporters Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Florin Stoian getting walked out of the NYPD\u2019s 104th Precinct in Ridgewood on Feb. 11, 2026 after getting arrested for a 2022 Queens hit-and-run fatal. James Messerschmidt for the NY Post<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you committed such a heinous crime, we\u2019re gonna go to the ends of the earth and make sure you\u2019re caught,\u201d Smith said. \u201cThis person was very elusive, has been in the past, was in this case as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stoian, an accused human trafficker with more than 30 aliases who is wanted across the globe, fled the city after he allegedly killed Be Tran\u00a0on Aug. 14, 2022, racking up crimes in Michigan, Canada, Ireland and The Netherlands before being imprisoned in Germany, the sources said.<\/p>\n

He is now accused of being behind the wheel of a black BMW that slammed into Tran on Myrtle Avenue in Ridgewood on Aug. 14, 2022, killing the elderly pedestrian, police said.<\/p>\n

According to sources, Stoian fled the scene and ditched the car \u2014 which he later set on fire, with the flames damaging several homes before he fled the country. <\/p>\n

Be Tran, right, was crossing a Queens street in 2022 when he was hit by a car and killed.<\/p>\n

Police investigate the Aug. 14, 2022, hit-and-run death of 74-year-old Be Tran in Queens. Peter Gerber<\/p>\n

The NYPD highway investigations squad launched their investigation, calling it \u201cMany Aliases\u201d \u2014 essentially Stoian\u2019s MO, police said. <\/p>\n

The squad tracked the accused killer to Michigan through rental card records, but he slipped away and escaped into Canada, then later to Europe, where investigators traced him to Germany, sources said.<\/p>\n

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It wasn\u2019t until last year that US law enforcement identified him as the German prisoner, they said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe detectives never waivered and they never and they never gave up just because the investigation became cold,\u201d Smith said. \u201cWe\u2019re gonna advocate for the victims.<\/p>\n

The NYPD never gave up in their hunt for the hit-and-run driver who killed Be Tran in 2022. Peter Gerber<\/p>\n

\u201cHe never planned on paying for his actions,\u201d the lieutenant said of the fugitive. \u201cDidn\u2019t think once about the victim or his family.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stoian was taken to the 104th Precinct stationhouse on Wednesday and is scheduled to be arraigned on charges of manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide assault, arson, leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death, criminal mischief, reckless driving and tampering with physical evidence. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Romanian fugitive is back in the Big Apple to face charges in the cowardly hit-and-run death of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":130578,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[3283,3140,473,56073,57,9,24,55,54,56,122,25259,58],"class_list":{"0":"post-130577","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-arrests","9":"tag-fugitives","10":"tag-hit-and-run","11":"tag-interpol","12":"tag-metro","13":"tag-new-york","14":"tag-new-york-city","15":"tag-new-york-city-headlines","16":"tag-new-york-city-news","17":"tag-ny","18":"tag-queens","19":"tag-romania","20":"tag-us-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/130578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}