Wolverhampton pickpocketing gang jailed for combined eight years
Three fraudsters who stole thousands of pounds from bank accounts after pickpocketing or distracting the victims have been locked up.
The gang, who all came from Wolverhampton, targeted vulnerable shoppers across Shropshire.
The sophisticated and well organised conspiracy to steal was also carried out across the wider Midlands area.
Many of the crimes dated from 2015 when group leader Marian Zanfir started preying on unsuspecting shoppers by stealing their debit cards from their person, or using distraction techniques to steal handbags and wallets from car seats.
He would then use the bank cards to withdraw large sums of cash at a time.
Shrewsbury Crown Court heard that after going quiet the 43-year-old resumed activity culminating in him, Ileana Babeanu, 39, and Dimitru Radu, 52, being arrested on the M54 after stealing from a woman in Pride Hill, Shrewsbury.
She raised the alarm and the police caught the defendants before they could escape.
Sentencing them, Recorder Kevin Hegarty QC said: “In 2015, Zanfir committed four offences of theft and four offences of fraud.
“They all involved stealing bank cards from older women. Some were more elderly than others.
“You were involved in watching them, no doubt to point out your intended victim and indicating to your confederates who was to be bumped into or otherwise distracted to enable you and those who you were with to steal their cards and with their personal ID number gain access to their accounts and help yourself to as much as you could possibly lay your hands on.
"These offences went undetected for many years and then you re-appeared in April 2019 when you along with others started to engage again in the same criminality, targeting women who were on their own at the shops going about their lawful business.
“Once again their cards were stolen and money then taken from their accounts.”
In total, 14 victims, who lost an average of £1,500 each, were targeted in the fraud.
The defendants, all of Limes Street, Merridale, Wolverhampton, were jailed for a combined total of eight years for the offences.
Zanfir was jailed for four years after admitting conspiracy to steal bank cards, conspiracy to defraud and theft.
Radu and Babeanu each received two-year sentences for conspiracy to steal bank cards and conspiracy to defraud.
