A previously deported Romanian transnational gangster faces a felony charge and deportation following a “significant arrest” near Mount Clemens, Mich., on Friday.
“Marysville agents, with law enforcement partners, arrested 3 Romanian illegal aliens on Friday,” John Morris, chief patrol agent for U.S. Border Patrol’s Detroit Sector, posted to X on Monday. “1 having confirmed affiliation as part of a Transnational Organized Criminal (TOC) outfit & is facing a felony charge. All are facing removal from the U.S.”
The post includes a graphic outlining the charges against the illegal immigrant that makes it clear it wasn’t his first rodeo: re-entry of removed aliens, alien inadmissibility, and alien previously removed.
The bust near Mount Clemens is just one of several involving dangerous criminals in the Detroit Sector in the last week.
Others include the Ohio arrests of two illegal immigrants from Mexico on Monday, including one with prior convictions for assault, sexual crimes, drugs, fraudulent documents, and possession of stolen property. Both now face deportation, Morris posted.
Another previously deported illegal immigrant from Mexico arrested near Brownstown, Mich., on Friday had a criminal history that included fraud and misuse of visas, and narcotics possession.
Over the weekend, agents at the Detroit station arrested four Venezuelan Special Interest Aliens and a previously deported illegal immigrant from Mexico with prior convictions for drug offenses, drunken driving, probation violations, and an active warrant, according to Morris.
The arrests, in Auburn Hills, Grosse Point Farms and Highland Park, led to multiple charges and deportation for all involved.
The Romanian arrest is significant as it follows about a month after revelations a gang illegal immigrants from Romania spent last summer stealing at least $112,000 in checks from dozens of Metro Detroit churches as part of a nationwide criminal enterprise that spanned nine states.
The scheme involved the use of a long tool with a sticky substance on the end used to remove mail from locked church mailboxes, impacting more than 200 victims, according to The Detroit News.
Investigators with the U.S. Postal Service used surveillance video, a tracking device and a marked Walmart gift card to target at least five people involved in the heists.
“The band of thieves, according to the government, included 40-year-old Florin Birzan …, and 31-year-old Delphie-Georgiana Epure, a Romanian woman who prosecutors said entered the U.S. illegally in 2022,” The News reports.
A total of 38 Detroit churches were targeted, with checks deposited into bank accounts opened by a person with a foreign passport in Houston, Texas. The money was later withdrawn from ATM machines, and spent on gold bars, jewelry, luxury items, and wired through Western Union to Romania, according to court records.
Epure pleaded guilty to bank fraud in April and faces a potential 30-year prison sentence, while Birzan pleaded guilty to bank fraud conspiracy and possession of stolen mail on May 30.
That was around the same time another illegal immigrant from Romania pleaded guilty in federal court to bank fraud in relation to an ATM skimming scheme in Cincinnati, despite a previous conviction in Michigan for illegally reentering the United States, WKRC reports.
Investigators matched 32-year-old Danut Valentin Urseiu’s fingerprints from the Michigan arrest to cameras placed with the skimming devices in Ohio to identify the criminal, who used the devices to steal information from cardholders.
Urseiu’s plea deal includes a recommended sentence of one year and a day in prison.
