2 Romanian nationals face hate crime charges in O.C. robberies targeting Hispanics

A pair of Romanian nationals face felony charges in Orange County for allegedly extorting local Hispanics for cash and debit cards while pretending to be immigration agents.

Laurentiu Baceanu and Vasile Alexandru, both 19, face 11 counts of second-degree robbery with hate crime enhancements, the Orange County District Attorney’s Office announced Wednesday. They also face felony charges in Contra Costa County and are suspected of carrying out similar crimes in Washington and New York, prosecutors said.

In a June 8 incident, a street vendor was selling food from a cart in Tustin when authorities say two men approached him in a vehicle.

“Identifying themselves as police officers, the defendants are accused of asking for his identification and telling him that they were looking for counterfeit bills,” the DA’s office said in a statement. “They demanded money, and if he refused to hand the cash over, they told him that he would be deported.”

Prosecutors say the pair took $380 in cash and the street vendor’s Mexican identification card.

In another instance, prosecutors allege the pair approached a man in a restaurant parking lot, identified themselves as immigration agents, and then stole cash and the man’s debit card and PIN.

Baceanu and Alexandru are charged with robbing 11 people, both men and women, in Tustin, Westminster, and Anaheim over two weeks, wearing fake law enforcement badges and speaking to the victims in Spanish.

They were arrested last Thursday in Fullerton in a blue Audi Q7 just hours after allegedly robbing four people in two separate incidents, the DA’s office said.

Both have pleaded not guilty.

“While their victims are struggling to put food on their tables and a roof over their children’s heads, these thieves are being trained to carry out these sophisticated operations to prey on people they know are unlikely to come forward,” Orange County DA Todd Spitzer said in a statement. “The humiliation and fear these individuals inflicted on their victims because of their perceived ethnicity is nothing short of disgusting.”

In January, Spitzer charged dozens of people with suspected ties to Romanian organized crime in a massive card-skimming operation that targeted recipients of public assistance funds.

Prosecutors say Baceanu and Alexandru are believed to be in the U.S. illegally, which Spitzer blamed on lax border policies.

“Criminals with ties to organized Romanian crime are continuing to prey on the most vulnerable of victims here in Orange County and across the nation while using the porous southern border as a direct pipeline to enter the United States with the sole purpose of committing crimes,” Spitzer said.