Jail for fraudsters targeting tube passengers (From Enfield Independent)

Jail for Enfield fraudsters Marin Mic and Tudor-Mihai Barjovanu targeting Paddington tube passengers

2:40pm Thursday 14th February 2013 in News By Hermione Wright

Two fraudsters have been jailed for three years after they were caught trying to steal tube passengers’ card details.

Marin Mic, 35, of Green Lanes, and Tudor-Mihai Barjovanu, 28, of Palmers Road, were caught red-handed when removing a camera from a ticket machine at Paddington tube station on November 9 last year.

British Transport Police, wearing plain clothes, were patrolling the station at the time to check for skimming devices used to steal customers’ card details from ATM machines and ticket machines.

At 12.30pm, an officer noticed one card reader looked different to the others and kept a close eye on the machine through a CCTV camera.

Forty-five minutes later, the fraudsters were spotted grabbing the camera device from the machine before hiding it in a shoulder bag.

Mic was immediately arrested, but Barjovanu ran out of the station where he was detained and arrested by a police officer.

Mic was handed a year-long sentence and Barjovanu was jailed for two years when they appeared at Blackfriars Crown Court on Friday, February 8.

They both pleaded guilty to possessing an article for use in fraud.

Speaking after the sentence, sergeant Helen Parsfield, the investigating officer, said: “Around 50 people used the ticket machine while the skimming device was in place.

"Thankfully the detective patrolling the station was able to stop these passengers from having their cards being fraudulently used by Mic and Barjovanu."