The Skimmer

Adrian Constantin Tiugan, 36, aka “The Jack,” is one of the gang’s more experienced card skimmers. Like several other members, he comes from Craiova, Romania. In 2012 he was convicted for being part of an organized crime group that had been caught two years earlier planting skimming devices in ATMs around Vatican City. After being sentenced by a Romanian court to two-and-a-half years in prison for the scheme, Tiugan fled the country. He arrived in Mexico and used the identity of a small-time Romanian crook, Paul Daniel Ionete, to set up Top Life Servicios, the front company for the Riviera Maya gang’s skimming operations. In January, his Romanian jail sentence expired as the statute of limitations kicked in. Today, he is a free man.