Romanian Nationals Charged with Participating in Multimillion Dollar Scheme to Hack into and Steal Credit Card Data from U.S. Merchants
The Department of Justice announced today that four Romanian nationals have been charged for their alleged participation in a multimillion dollar scheme to hack into and steal payment card data from merchants’ point of sale (POS) systems in the U.S.
According to the Department of Justice, Adrian-Tiberiu Oprea (27), Iulian Dolan (27), Cezar Iulian Butu (26), and Florin Radu (23), all from Romania, were charged in a four-count indictment with conspiracy to commit computer fraud, wire fraud and access device fraud.
Oprea was arrested last week in Romania and remains in custody there, while Dolan and Butu were arrested upon their arrival into the United States in August, and are currently in United States custody. Radu remains on the loose.
The indictment alleges that from sometime in 2008 until May 2011, Oprea, Dolan, Butu and Radu conspired to hack into more than 200 U.S.-based merchants’ point-of-sale systems in order to steal customers’ credit card data.
Victims of the attacks include more than 150 Subway restaurants across the United States, as well as more than 50 other identified retailers.
Related Reading: PCI DSS 2.0 Compliance Deadlines are Looming – Are you Ready?
According to the indictment, the hackers compromised the credit card data of more than 80,000 customers, resulting in millions of dollars of unauthorized purchases using compromised card numbers.
The defendants face a maximum of five years in prison for each count of conspiracy to commit computer related fraud, 30 years in prison for each count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and five years in prison for each count of conspiracy to commit access device fraud. They also face fines up to twice the amount of the fraud loss and restitution.
The case was investigated by the U.S. Secret Service and was assisted by The Office of International Affairs, part of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. The DOJ said that Subway’s corporate headquarters assisted in the investigation as well.

For more than 10 years, Mike Lennon has been closely monitoring the threat landscape and analyzing trends in the National Security and enterprise cybersecurity space. In his role at SecurityWeek, he oversees the editorial direction of the publication and is the Director of several leading security industry conferences around the world.
More from Mike Lennon
- ‘No Evidence’ of Cyberattack Related to FAA Outage, White House Says
- SecurityWeek to Host 2022 ICS Cybersecurity Conference October 24-27 in Atlanta
- Google Completes $5.4 Billion Acquisition of Mandiant
- Cybersecurity Firm ZeroFox Begins Trading on Nasdaq via SPAC Deal
- HUMAN Security and PerimeterX Merge on Mission to Combat Bots
- Last Call: CFP for ICS Cybersecurity Conference Closes July 15th
- Johnson Controls Acquires Tempered Networks to Shield Buildings From Cyberattacks
- Snowflake Launches Cybersecurity Workload to Find Threats Across Massive Data Sets
Latest News
- Cyberattacks Target Websites of German Airports, Admin
- US Infiltrates Big Ransomware Gang: ‘We Hacked the Hackers’
- Tenable Launches $25 Million Early-Stage Venture Fund
- 820k Impacted by Data Breach at Zacks Investment Research
- Mapping Threat Intelligence to the NIST Compliance Framework Part 2
- Hive Ransomware Operation Shut Down by Law Enforcement
- US Government Agencies Warn of Malicious Use of Remote Management Software
- UK Gov Warns of Phishing Attacks Launched by Iranian, Russian Cyberspies
