Three individuals from Europe have entered guilty pleas to federal charges after an extensive multi-agency law enforcement operation exposed their scheme to defraud the state of California, specifically targeting funds intended for low-income residents. According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California, Ionut Calciu, 31, Florian Serban, 51, both from Romania, and Mohamed Hichem El Mabrouk, 35, of France, pleaded guilty to the unauthorized use of access devices, each culminating in a potential maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.
During a focused sting in early February, law enforcement personnel kept watch on various ATMs throughout the Los Angeles area for signs of fraudulent activity, noting multiple suspicious cash withdrawals of EBT funds. These funds, initially allocated to qualified individuals via the California Department of Social Services (DSS) for programmes like CalFresh and CalWORKs, ended up misappropriated by the hands of the accused who were not the legitimate cardholders they arrested the suspects after ascertaining that the persons making withdrawals did not have rightful claims to the EBT account funds. In the course of the investigation, authorities have unearthed over $126.8 million stolen from EBT cards in 2024 alone, as indicated by court records cited in the public statement.
Further details revealed in the plea agreements show how the defendants operated a sophisticated scheme to withdraw significant amounts of money from EBT accounts without authorization. Calciu alone admitted to illicitly extracting at least $31,000 on February 2, with Serban aiding as a lookout during the illegal ATM withdrawals; meanwhile, El Mabrouk managed to withdraw $25,480 on February 1 and another $2,420 the following day, authorities also found him in possession of at least 32 counterfeit EBT cards which he and a co-conspirator had fraudulently encoded.
The expansive operation drew support from several law enforcement agencies, including Homeland Security Investigations’ El Camino Real Task Force, United States Secret Service, LAPD, and even the United States Department of Agriculture Office of Inspector General, highlighting the pervasive and collaborative effort aimed at safeguarding the integrity of state-funded assistance programs, their efforts have culminated in curbing a fraudulent operation that preyed on a system designed to aid those of limited means, with the cooperative judicial process now moving towards sentencing, with Calciu and Serban's scheduled for August 29 and El Mabrouk's set for September 5 as reported by the U.S. Attorney's Office.
