03/12/2024

Romanian Woman Sentenced for Possession of Device Making Equipment and Aggravated Identity Theft

US Attorney's Office District of Nebraska

United States Attorney Susan Lehr announced that Mona Maria Tataru, 32, a Romanian citizen whose most recent address was in Los Angeles, California, was sentenced on March 8, 2024, in federal court in Omaha, Nebraska, for possession of device making equipment with intent to defraud and aggravated identity theft.  Chief United States District Judge Robert F. Rossiter, Jr. sentenced Tataru to 10 months in prison for possession of device making equipment with intent to defraud and a consecutive 24 months in prison for aggravated identity theft, to be followed by 2 years of supervised release.  There is no parole in the federal system.

In April 2023, surveillance video showed Tataru and a confederate placing a skimming device and pinhole camera on an ATM in Omaha.  Omaha police officers located the vehicle shown in the video and contacted Tataru and the confederate at a local motel.  In Tataru’s and the confederate’s possession, officers located more skimming devices and cameras, equipment to generate phony debit and ATM cards, and several cards that had been encoded with stolen bank account information that enabled them to be used as ATM cards.  In total, officers located approximately 220 sets of bank account information corresponding to accounts at more than a dozen different banks.    

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