A 28-year-old Romanian national has admitted to running a nationwide retail fraud scheme that used a slippery cash-counting trick to steal $157,229 from stores across Missouri and 19 other states. Bazili Anghel Anghel pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in St. Louis to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and illegal reentry, capping a scheme federal prosecutors say played out at least 90 times over roughly four years.
According to FOX 2, Anghel and his accomplices would bring electronics to store cashiers and count out the purchase price in cash, stacking bills into piles before consolidating them into a single stack. While handing over what looked like full payment, the group would secretly slide bills from the bottom of the stack into a pocket or purse before passing the remaining cash to the unsuspecting cashier. The same electronics were then carried to another store, where the group sought full refunds for merchandise they had never actually paid for at full price.
The case was investigated by Homeland Security Investigations, a branch of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Karin Schute in the Eastern District of Missouri, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Federal court records reviewed by PacerMonitor list several aliases for Anghel — including Anghel Bazili, Edward Tansae, and Bazili Angher — in the case.
A Long Immigration Trail Before the Scheme Began
Anghel's path to the Eastern District of Missouri courtroom included more than just fraud charges. Per the Department of Justice, he unlawfully entered the United States before August 2018, was formally removed to Romania in April 2019, and then illegally re-entered the country in May 2022 — the same month prosecutors say the fraud conspiracy began.
In his plea agreement, Anghel admitted that he and his co-conspirators carried out the sleight-of-hand fraud on at least 90 separate occasions across Missouri and 19 other states between May 2022 and 2026, the Justice Department reported. Anghel pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud in connection with the scheme.
Prison Time and Fines on the Table
Anghel is scheduled to be sentenced on January 6, 2027. Under federal statutory guidelines, the conspiracy to commit wire fraud charge carries a maximum penalty of up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, while the illegal reentry charge carries up to two years in prison and a $250,000 fine, the same Justice Department release notes.
Part of a Broader Pattern Nationwide
Anghel's case is not an isolated one. The National Retail Federation describes quick-change or short-change scams as retail fraud tactics. Reader's Digest recommends employee training and placing cash across the register to guard against these cash-handling schemes.
Federal prosecutors have pursued similar cases elsewhere. In August 2025, authorities in Mississippi secured a guilty plea against another unauthorized Romanian national who used quick-change sleight-of-hand tricks to defraud supermarket wire transfer kiosks across the central part of that state, according to the Justice Department's Southern District of Mississippi office. In August 2023, loss prevention investigators working with chains including TJ Maxx, Gap, and Old Navy uncovered an organized crime ring using the same quick-change tactics across multiple Twin Cities metro retail locations, as reported by FOX 9 Minneapolis.
It remains unclear whether additional co-conspirators tied to the 20-state operation face pending indictments or whether restitution will be ordered for the retailers targeted. The case illustrates how a cash-counting trick can be used in retail fraud.
