Romanian nationals Laurentiu Baceanu, left, and Alexandru Vasile were each charged Monday with 11 felony counts of second-degree robbery and 11 felony counts of hate crime enhancement in Orange County.
(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 crimes, authorities said Wednesday.
The men allegedly approached workers with fake badges and identified themselves as agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the FBI or local police, according to the Orange County district attorney's office.
One of the suspects later told police that he “targeted Hispanic men because they have cash” and that “they are afraid because of their immigration status and would not call the police,” prosecutors said during a court hearing Monday.
Laurentiu Baceanu, 20, and Alexandru Vasile, 19, both Romanian nationals, were charged Monday with 11 felony counts of second-degree robbery and 11 felony counts of hate crime enhancement, the prosecutor's office said. district.
Baceanu and Vasile have pleaded not guilty and are due to appear in court on July 2.
Prosecutors say they believe Baceanu and Vasile are undocumented immigrants with ties to Romanian organized crime. They were also charged with kidnapping, false imprisonment and robberies in Contra Costa County on Monday and are suspected of similar crimes in Santa Clara County, as well as New York and Washington states, prosecutors in Contra Costa County said. Orange.
They are being held without bail and will be tried first in Orange County before facing charges in the other jurisdictions, according to authorities.
Anaheim Police Department officers arrested Baceanu and Vasile on Thursday after two robberies in the city that day, including one in which the men allegedly robbed three day laborers in a Home Depot parking lot after asking them to show them their ID. Shortly after, authorities say, the suspects stole $600 from a man they detained and threatened to deport him as he walked down the street, claiming they were ICE agents.
Officers later found Baceanu and Vasile in Fullerton, driving a blue Audi Q7 SUV, according to the Anaheim Police Department.
Prosecutors say the Anaheim robberies were part of a larger pattern in which suspects demanded money and debit cards from individuals while threatening them in Spanish. Authorities say there are 11 reported victims in Orange County.
They include a street vendor in Tustin who was allegedly approached by two men at his food cart on June 8. The men said they were police officers and asked for the seller's identification, according to authorities. The men claimed they were looking for counterfeit bills and demanded the man's money while threatening to deport him. They stole $380 and a Mexican identity card from the seller.
A week later, on June 15, a father and son walking down the street in Tustin were approached by two men in a blue Audi. They said they were FBI agents and were looking for someone, and demanded the father and son show them identification. They then asked them if the money they had in their wallet was real.
When the father and son became suspicious and called the police, the men left.
Later that day, a man riding his bike home from work in Westminster said he was approached by two men who claimed to be ICE agents, according to prosecutors. They demanded the man's identification and money and threatened to deport him if he didn't listen to them, 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, along with his debit card and his PIN number.
A day later, a man told the Westminster Police Department that two men had stolen money from him using the banking app on his phone after he handed it over to them. Prosecutors say the men identified themselves as immigration agents and also stole the man's debit card.
On June 18, two men claiming to be immigration agents robbed a woman in Anaheim of $800 after telling her they needed to see her immigration paperwork, according to authorities.
“The humiliation and fear that these individuals inflicted on their victims due to their ethnic perception is nothing short of sickening. 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,” Dist. Attorney. Todd Spitzer said in a statement Wednesday.
Authorities 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 citizens with allegedly committing crimes locally.
Nearly 50 suspects believed to have ties to a Romanian criminal organization were charged in January in connection with a card skimming operation targeting people receiving government assistance to pay for food, diapers and other necessities, according to the district attorney's office.
Authorities have said some of those suspects entered the country illegally through border crossings.
During that time, authorities also arrested Florin Duduianu, a wanted criminal from Romania, who was later found guilty of fraudulently accessing government assistance funds, according to prosecutors.
In 2023 alone, California lost more than $108 million in CalWORKs benefits to fraud, which involves people stealing money from individuals' electronic benefit transfer accounts, or EBT cards, the district attorney's office said.
