Columnist Jeff German: Romanian mob goes high tech

Friday, July 30, 2004 | 11:01 a.m.

If you ask FBI agents, they'll tell you that Romanian-born Florin Iancu and his younger brother Mihai loved the fast lane in Las Vegas.

They loved driving luxury cars, wearing expensive jewelry, surrounding themselves with beautiful women, throwing money around the crowded Strip nightclub scene and hosting lavish parties with an endless supply of Cristal champagne.

Agents have a videotape of one party at a local restaurant showing the brothers and their friends, as a sign of their appreciation, throwing cash at the feet of band members imported from Romania to entertain them. By the end of the night, the floor was covered with bills.

But beyond the good life, agents say, 34-year-old Florin and 27-year-old Mihai loved being bosses of a Romanian crime syndicate dedicated to pulling off millions of dollars in credit card theft at Strip casinos.

That is, until they were indicted on federal racketeering charges in May with 11 associates and fled the country. There are some things money can't buy.

Eight members of a rival ring also were charged in a separate indictment in May as part of a widening FBI crackdown. That group's reputed leader, 43-year-old Petru Dragoi, is still at large.

FBI agents say they know the Iancu brothers are hiding out just south of Tijuana in Mexico, and they are determined to get them back to Las Vegas to face the racketeering charges.

Authorities believe the brothers and their competitors represent the new organized crime in Las Vegas.

These groups don't dabble in illegal bookmaking and loan-sharking, staples of La Cosa Nostra, which has seen its best days here. And they don't deal drugs and launder money like the emerging Israeli mob.

The Romanian syndicates prefer to earn their ill-gotten gains through high-tech schemes and, unlike traditional organized crime groups, they prefer to make victims out of unsuspecting citizens.

When your belongings are left alone, let's say while you're working out at a fitness center, they slip into the locker room and steal your credit card. If they don't want to take the card, they use a "skimmer," a hand-held device that reads and records the personal information on the card's magnetic tape. Then they make a computer-generated clone of the card.

They have the latest equipment to manufacture phony driver's licenses so they can obtain cash with your stolen credit at any casino on the Strip. The driver's licenses contain the information gleaned from your credit card but the photo of the group member looking to rob you.

Most daring of all is their latest criminal venture. The groups use pin-hole cameras, skimmers and radio receivers to steal debit card and pin numbers as you conduct business at an ATM machine. It's a chilling scheme that warrants further explanation in this space another day.

If the Romanian crime rings have different methods of operation than traditional organized crime, they have one thing in common with their predecessors of ill repute -- violence.

In January 2002, FBI agents say, a fight erupted between the Iancu organization and a rival group outside the old Kitchen Cafe at Flamingo Road and Decatur Boulevard. A member of the rival group was shot and killed.

Florin Iancu, agents say, is so enamored of the ruthless Tony Montana character portrayed by Al Pacino in the movie Scarface, that he makes his associates call him "Tony."

Mexican authorities have been slow to help the FBI capture the Iancu brothers, but agents are confident they'll get their men soon.

Agents have been putting pressure on members of the local Romanian community who have been helping the brothers elude the law.

And there has been talk on the street (out of earshot of FBI agents, of course) that private bounty hunters might be sent to Mexico to pick up the brothers -- far away from the fast lane.