Baytown police bust credit card skimming operation, arrest duo with deep skimmers
BAYTOWN, Texas - Baytown police arrested 25-year-old Perla Miclescu and 20-year-old Rafael Rafaila on multiple charges related to a credit card skimming scam.
Harris County court records indicate the duo were in possession of a ‘deep insert skimmer’, ‘overlay pinhole cameras’ and 24 re-encoded credit cards.
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Records say Miclesu is a Romanian citizen and both defendants have current deportation proceedings.
Records also indicate both defendants have active warrants for fraud-related charges in other counties and states.
An indictment from 2019 out of Colorado County, Texas says that Miclescu committed a robbery with three other defendants. Harris County records indicate Miclescu posted bond in that case and never went back to court.
Court records say that Rafaila has open charges for unlawful possession of a card skimming device in Indiana.
Jeff Roberts, Captain of Internal Operations at the Texas Financial Crimes Intelligence Center, says he can't comment directly on this case, but explains a ‘deep insert skimmer’ is a common and very dangerous device.
"What they're doing is placing these skimmers internally inside the card reader, which we call deep Insert skimmers. Then they use a camera device which is hidden to look like stock hardware - that then captures when you put your pin number in. So, they're actually videotaping the transaction," he said.
He says to keep your information safe, your best bet is tap to pay. He says that the magnetic strip on the card is the most vulnerable part and where thieves steal information from.
He says using Apple Pay or Google Pay on your phone or a tap option on your card mitigates that threat.
"Those are very secure transactions and, as it sits currently, those aren't able to be skimmed, because you're not swiping into the terminal," he said.
The Texas Financial Crimes Intelligence Center says over the past two years they've recovered 445 credit card skimmers and 5,574 fraudulent credit cards. Saying they've prevented $171,516,831 in monetary losses due to fraud in Texas.
Both defendants are in the Harris County jail on a $200,000 bond.