By Philip Newman
Metropolitan Transportation Authority Police have released a wanted poster for a suspect allegedly behind an attempt to scam Long Island Rail Road ticket dispensers at the Baldwin, L.I. station.
MTA Police identified the suspect as Vasile Ovidiu Haidau, 35, a Romanian national who police said has connections to a credit card identity theft gang in California.
The poster bears his photo.
LIRR technicians last week found what they said was a scanning device inside the credit/debit cards slot in a Baldwin ticket vending machine as well as a tiny camera hidden above the keyboard that was video taping as LIRR riders typed in their PINs.
The LIRR customarily monitors ticket vending machines for signs of tampering.
MTA police said the scammers had not been able to download any of the information picked up by either device and thus they do not believe any LIRR patrons who used that machine had their credit or debit information compromised.
Nevertheless, police and the LIRR advised riders to take precautions to protect their PIN numbers when using them and advise anyone encountering unfamiliar transactions on their bank statements to contact their banks or other financial institutions.
Police said Haidau was last seen Monday driving a 2014 blue Volvo S80 westbound on Sunrise Highway in Baldwin. The rental car carried the license plate GKR5959.
Police asked anyone spotting him to consider him dangerous and to notify MTA Police Communications (718 222-6501) or the On Duty-On Call Detective Sergeant via MTA Police Communications (718 361 2201.
In November, authorities arrested four Romanian nationals — two from Elmhurst — suspected of installing hidden cameras and credit card skimmers on ticket machines at various Long Island Rail Road stations, including one in Bayside, investigators said.
Police arrested a husband-and-wife team of Valer Zaharia, 38, and Teodora Zaharia, 27, after they were spotted retrieving two skimming devices and two hidden cameras from ticket vending machines at the Sea Cliff LIRR station, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority Police said.
The Zaharias were arraigned last week in First District Court in Hempstead, L.I., and charged with identity theft, criminal possession of forgery devices and unlawful possession of a skimmer device, the Nassau County district attorney said.
An investigation was launched on the LIRR system late last year after cameras and scanning devices were found in some Metro-North stations, the MTA said.
