A routine traffic stop over a red-light violation at Harvard Avenue and Commonwealth Avenue in Brighton on Tuesday spiraled into a major fraud bust, with officers recovering 124 forged ATM and debit cards, a stack of bundled cash, and a fake Italian driver's license from the vehicle's driver. The driver, identified as 27-year-old Nicusor Lazar, is now facing a lengthy list of felony charges tied to an ongoing card fraud investigation in the neighborhood.
According to the Boston Police Department, District D-14 officers initiated the stop after watching the vehicle run the red light at the busy intersection Tuesday. When officers approached, they recognized the driver as someone detectives had been trying to identify in connection with an active ATM card fraud investigation already underway in the district. Lazar reportedly lacked a valid license to operate a motor vehicle in the United States and instead handed over an Italian driver's license along with a bank card bearing the same name, both of which were later determined to be fraudulent, per the police account.
Once officers looked inside the car, the case escalated quickly. They spotted numerous credit and debit cards sitting in the cup holder along with a large stack of bundled U.S. currency in the center console, the department said. District D-14 detectives went on to recover 124 forged ATM and debit cards from the vehicle, along with an undisclosed amount of cash, according to the same Facebook post from police.
Charges Reflect the Scale of the Alleged Scheme
Lazar is expected to be arraigned in Brighton District Court on a slate of charges that includes money laundering, two counts of uttering, identity fraud, forgery of a Registry of Motor Vehicles document, and furnishing a false ID to law enforcement, per the department's post. The charges carry significant weight under Massachusetts law: a state money laundering conviction under M.G.L. c. 267A § 2 can bring up to six years in state prison and a fine as high as $250,000 or twice the value of the laundered funds for a first offense, according to the Law Office of Frank D. Camera and Associates PC.
The identity fraud charge alone can carry mandatory restitution to victims on top of jail time. Under M.G.L. c. 266 § 37E, identity fraud in Massachusetts is punishable by up to 2.5 years in a house of correction, a $5,000 fine, and court-ordered restitution, and the statute covers both posing as another person and possessing unauthorized financial access tools, per the Law Office of Herne & Stone. Separately, the forged RMV document charge is itself a felony under M.G.L. c. 90 § 24B, carrying up to five years in state prison, up to two years in a house of correction, and a mandatory one-year license suspension upon conviction, according to the Law Office of Matthew Peterson.
The false-ID charge stems from a separate statutory obligation. M.G.L. c. 268 § 34A requires anyone arrested in Massachusetts to give their true name and identity to law enforcement, and false representations can trigger criminal penalties along with immigration consequences for noncitizens under federal standards, per Mike Baker's Law Offices.
A Neighborhood Already Wary of Card Fraud
Brighton has dealt with ATM tampering before. Boston Police issued a public safety warning in December after a technician found an unauthorized electronic card-skimming chip hidden inside an ATM at a Market Street convenience store in the neighborhood, as Hoodline previously reported. Tuesday's stop happened at Harvard Avenue and Brainerd Road before the vehicle ran the light at Commonwealth Avenue, right in the heart of a commercial and transit corridor anchored by the MBTA Green Line B Branch's busiest station, according to Boston University's Transportation Master Plan.
District D-14 covers both Allston and Brighton out of its station house at 301 Washington Street and has operated under new leadership since March, per Allstonia. Card fraud has kept Boston police departments busy elsewhere in the city too — in March, detectives were still searching for a Mattapan duo accused of draining $19,000 from a victim's account through card fraud and PIN capturing, and in September 2025, District A-1 sought help identifying suspects behind a South Boston scheme that commandeered bank cards to drain accounts.
Card Cloning's Bigger Price Tag
The scale of cards found in Lazar's vehicle fits into a much larger national problem. The FBI estimates that credit and debit card skimming schemes cost financial institutions and consumers more than $1 billion annually across the country, according to Capital One. During 2025 outreach operations alone, the U.S. Secret Service removed more than 400 illegal card-skimming devices nationwide, preventing an estimated $428 million in potential fraud losses across thousands of inspected terminals and ATMs, and the agency has since expanded its enforcement operations into 2026.
Globally, credit and debit card fraud losses were projected to reach $48 billion in 2025, according to the Nilson Report, which notes that international card-cloning syndicates frequently harvest data to manufacture physical counterfeit cards for ATM withdrawals. It remains unclear how the 124 cards recovered from Lazar's vehicle were produced, whether the cash found in the center console traces back to recent local ATM withdrawals, or whether D-14 detectives are linking him to a broader local or international card-cloning operation. Boston Police have not released further details on those questions.
