Ventura County authorities are looking for two Romanian men who jumped bail after they were accused of financial fraud in an investigation by American and Romanian authorities that also led to the arrests of 11 others.
The Ventura County District Attorney’s Office said Paul Kimpian (aka Roman Janecek) and Marius Vlaic, affiliates of the Dorneanu organized crime group, cut their ankle monitors and fled after they posted $50,000 bail in 2023.
Kimpian and Vlaic had been charged with “more than a dozen felony counts, including conspiracy and grand theft, related to several instances of CalWORKs theft using cloned EBT cards,” the DA’s Office said in a news release.
Anyone with information about them is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS.
Allegedly helmed by Mihai Dorneanu, the Dorneanu group has been under investigation by the Ventura County DA’s Office and FBI for two years after “widespread EBT skimming fraud” resulted in “the theft of hundreds of millions of dollars in California welfare funds, including funds stolen from Ventura County residents,” the release said.
Since 2021 in Ventura County alone, nearly $2.2 million has been lost to EBT skimming fraud, which impacts “some of the county’s most financially vulnerable residents,” officials said.
“Our office remains committed to protecting Ventura County residents from fraud and financial exploitation,” District Attorney Erik Nasarenko said in the release. “This investigation demonstrates the importance of collaboration between local, federal, and international law enforcement agencies to dismantle organized crime groups that target public assistance programs.”
In Romania earlier this month, the service of 24 search warrants related to this scheme resulted in the arrest of 11 people, as well as seizures of “devices used to clone EBT cards, electronic components, documents, mobile phones, laptops, large sums of cash, and six vehicles,” officials said.
Romanian nationals have been implicated in other criminal activity in Southern California recently, including a jewelry-switching scheme.
