Two men were arrested late last week during a multi-city crackdown on EBT thefts throughout the Inland Empire, authorities said.
A media bulletin put out by the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department states that deputies were conducting surveillance at multiple banks in Chino Hills early Friday morning as part of an operation led by the San Bernardino County Welfare Fraud Unit.
At one of the banks, a Wells Fargo branch located at 3289 Grand Ave., deputies observed two men in possession of a large amount of money just after 6 a.m. They were later found to have “approximately 60” cloned EBT cards, which provided the suspects access to multiple victims’ accounts.
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“The currency found in their possession was stolen via the cloned EBT cards,” SBSD said. “Through investigation, deputies learned the cloned EBT cards possessed by the suspects had over $50,000 remaining that they were not able to utilize.”
The two men were identified as 39-year-old Nikola Pavel of Los Angeles and Gheorghe Getla, 57, a resident of Kent, Washington.