Romanian citizens Laurentiu Baceanu (left) and Alexandru Vasile were charged Monday in Orange County with 11 counts of second-degree robbery and 11 counts of hate crime.
(Orange County District Attorney’s Office)
Two men who allegedly posed as immigration agents and threatened to deport Latino street vendors and day laborers during a series of robberies in Orange County have been charged with hate crimes and other offenses, authorities said Wednesday.
According to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office, the men allegedly approached workers wearing fake badges and posing as agents of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the FBI or local police.
During a court hearing Monday, prosecutors said one of the suspects later told police he “targeted Hispanic men because they have cash” and “they are scared because of their immigration status and won’t call the police.”
Laurentiu Baceanu, 20, and Alexandru Vasile, 19, — both Romanian citizens — were charged Monday with 11 felony counts of second-degree robbery and 11 felony counts of hate crime, the district attorney’s office said.
Bassenu and Vasile have pleaded not guilty and are due to appear in court on July 2.
Prosecutors say they believe Becesanu and Vasile are illegal immigrants linked to Romanian organized crime. They were also charged Monday with kidnapping, false imprisonment and robbery in Contra Costa County and are suspected of similar crimes in Santa Clara County, as well as in New York and Washington state, Orange County prosecutors said.
He is being held without bail and will be arraigned in Orange County before facing charges in other courts, according to authorities.
Anaheim Police Department officers arrested Besenu and Vasile following two robberies in the city on Thursday, including one in which the men asked three day laborers in a Home Depot parking lot to show their IDs and robbed them. Officers say a short time later, the suspects stole $600 from a man they stopped and walked down the street and threatened to have him deported, claiming they were ICE agents.
According to the Anaheim Police Department, officers later found Besenu and Vasile driving a blue Audi Q7 SUV in Fullerton.
Prosecutors say the robberies in Anaheim were part of a larger pattern in which the suspects threatened people in Spanish and demanded money and debit cards. There have been 11 reported victims in Orange County, according to authorities.
They include a street vendor in Tustin who was allegedly approached by two men at his food cart on June 8. According to authorities, the men posed as police officers and demanded the vendor’s identification. The men claimed they were looking for counterfeit money and demanded money from the man, threatening to deport him. They stole $380 and a Mexican identification card from the vendor.
A week later, on June 15, a father and his son walking down the street in Tustin were approached by two men in a blue Audi. They claimed they were FBI agents looking for someone, and asked the father and son to show identification. They then asked if the money in their wallets was real.
When the father and son got suspicious and called the police, they fled.
Later that day, a man biking home from work in Westminster reported he was approached by two men who claimed they were ICE agents, according to prosecutors. They demanded the man’s identification and money and threatened to have him deported if he didn’t comply, authorities said.
Two days later, two men approached a man in a restaurant parking lot and identified themselves as immigration agents. According to prosecutors, they stole the man’s money, debit card and PIN number.
A day later, a man told the Westminster Police Department that two people stole money using the banking app on his phone after he handed them money. Prosecutors say the men posed as immigration agents and also stole the man’s debit card.
On June 18, two men claiming to be immigration agents stole $800 from a woman in Anaheim, saying they needed to see her immigration papers, according to authorities.
“The outrage and fear these individuals inflicted on their victims because of their perceived ethnicity is nothing short of abhorrent. In Orange County, we will not tolerate hate and any crime motivated by someone’s ethnicity or race will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” District Attorney Todd Spitzer said in a statement Wednesday.
Officials are asking anyone who believes they have been a victim of a similar crime to contact their local police department or Orange County Crime Stoppers at (855) TIP-OCCS (847-6227) or occrimestoppers.org,
This is not the first time this year that Orange County prosecutors have charged Romanian nationals with crimes locally.
Nearly 50 suspects with ties to a Romanian criminal organization were charged in January in connection with a card-skimming operation that targeted people who receive government assistance to pay for food, diapers and other essential items, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
Officials have said that some of these suspects had crossed the border and entered the country illegally.
During that time, authorities also arrested Florin Duduianu, a wanted criminal from Romania who was later convicted of fraudulently obtaining government aid money, according to prosecutors.
In 2023 alone, California lost more than $108 million in CalWORKS benefits due to fraud, in which people steal money The District Attorney’s Office said the money can be withdrawn from a person’s Electronic Benefits Transfer accounts, or EBT cards.
