A number of customers at a Walmart store in Erie unknowingly provided their card and pin numbers to thieves while using checkout line point-of-sale scanners in 2024 and 2025.
At least $38,000 was taken from 80 people who reported missing money, but the number of victims and the amount stolen is likely much higher, Erie police Detective James Becker said May 5.
The money was taken from the victims, mainly through the use of Electronic Benefit Transfer cards, by skimmers that were placed on point-of-sale terminals at the Walmart store at 2711 Elm St. in the city, according to Erie police. The skimmers were discovered in December 2024 and April 2025.
Through investigation and assistance from law enforcement in western New York, Erie police were able to identify and charge four people with perpetrating the scams.
Whether they will ultimately return to Erie and face charges remains to be seen. According to Becker, the four are all illegal aliens, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement took three of them into custody after they were arrested in September by police in Orchard Park, New York. The fourth suspect is possibly in the Chicago area, he said.
Facing charges in connection with the skimming device found in December 2024 are Remus Rosu, 30; and Louisa Unguru, 25. Facing charges in connection with the device found in April 2025 are Unguru; Constantin P. Giurebe, no age listed; and Cosmin L. Cretu, 28. Each is facing felony counts of use of a device to obtain encoded information and access device fraud and misdemeanor counts of unlawful device, receiving stolen property and theft.
Becker filed the charges against the four April 30.
More: ‘Professional international criminal’ gets 3½ years in $106K Erie-area ATM-skimming thefts
Security strips also removed
Through store video, according to Becker, police were able to watch the movements of the suspects as skimmers were placed on point-of-sale scanners at checkout lanes. Video also revealed that, on at least one of the occasions, the suspects removed a red security strip from a point-of-sale terminal at a self-checkout lane.
The strips were wrapped around the terminals by Walmart as a security measure, Becker said. Employees would be able to tell if a point-of-sale system was tampered with if a strip was removed, he said.
In the incident from April, according to information in the criminal complaints, an employee had reported a missing security strip from a terminal, and in reviewing surveillance video the store’s loss prevention associates saw two men installing a skimming device.
A little more than 30 minutes before the video captured the suspects installing the device, Becker wrote in the complaints, one of the suspects was seen removing a security strip and leaving the store. Two suspects then returned to the store and shopped, and when they went to a checkout lane one of the suspects was seen installing a skimming device that had the security strip attached to it, according to information in the complaints.
Contact Tim Hahn at thahn@usatodayco.com.
This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Four charged in theft probe involving card skimmers at Erie Walmart