Employees at the All Fresh supermarket on Pond Street in Bristol Borough caught a familiar face lurking near their card terminals last week — and this time, they didn’t let him walk out. Workers detained 38-year-old Ionut Adrian Oprea of Miami, Florida, until officers arrived, after recognizing him and a second man from a similar incident inside the same store roughly a month earlier. Oprea now faces felony charges tied to a skimming scheme investigators say specifically targeted customers who use EBT benefits to buy groceries.
Oprea was arraigned by Magisterial District Judge Charles Jonas on two counts each of criminal conspiracy, unlawful device-making equipment, and possession of an instrument of crime, according to the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office. Bail was set at $250,000 at 10 percent, and Oprea was remanded to the Bucks County Correctional Facility following his arrest on August 20. Police say he used card-skimming devices designed to steal customers’ information, targeting EBT accounts at the Bristol supermarket, as reported by CBS Philadelphia.
The case traces back to July, when the same two men allegedly visited the store and attached a skimming overlay over a legitimate card terminal, according to a detailed account from PhillyVoice. Investigators determined the pair worked in tandem on both occasions: one man paid in cash to distract staff at the register while secretly installing the device, while Oprea loaded groceries into a cart and kept watch for employees. When workers intervened on August 20, the second suspect fled on foot toward Wood Street and remains at large.
Devices Built to Beat Detection
The recovered hardware included custom electronic keypads, batteries and wiring, and was attached over the legitimate card terminals with a strong adhesive that made the devices difficult to detect, per the same CBS Philadelphia account. The devices recovered in Bristol were specifically designed to target EBT accounts, and authorities say this was not the first skimming device found in Bristol or elsewhere in Lower Bucks County. Investigators are still working to determine whether other businesses in the county were targeted and how many people may have been affected…