Romanian indicted for fake access devices

CEBU, Philippines – A Romanian national caught having in possession of counterfeit access devices was indicted before the court for violation of the Access Devices Regulation Act of 1998.

Prosecutor Rodulph Joseph Val Carillo has found probable cause to hold Georghe Adelin Stretcu, 32, for trial for violation of Section 9, Paragraph (e) of Republic Act 8484.

Stretcu was arrested inside a mall in Cebu City on September 20 at 4 p.m. for acting suspiciously. He was observed to have been withdrawing cash from one ATM to another using counterfeit device.

“Puzzled and suspicious, we approached the suspect and politely invited him to the office for further interview,” said the members of the City Intelligence Branch who arrested Stretcu.

The police seized 90 pale green 7-Eleven reward cards with the PIN of various cloned credit cards written on a small pieces of paper taped on each card.

Police Officer 3 Alvin Jacalan and PO3 Jason Ruiz, arresting officers, said the suspect freely confessed during investigation that he had been using cloned credit cards to withdraw money.

“When asked to elaborate further, Mr. Stretcu freely confessed that he allegedly met and befriended a German national nicknamed only as “Skinhead” in Frankfurt, Germany. Stretcu revealed that Skinhead hack information from different credit card account holders in Europe and using a special computer software, they encode the PIN and other necessary information onto a black magnetic tape/strip and with the use of another gadget put the black magnetic tape/strip at the back of each 7-Eleven Reward Card already encoded with the said hacked information,” the arresting officers stated in their joint-affidavit.

The prosecutor’s office has recommended P20,000 bail for Stretcu’s temporary liberty. —/FPL (FREEMAN)