Romanian Sentenced to 24 Months in Prison for Nationwide Sleight-of-Hand Fraud

ST. LOUIS – U.S. District Judge Matthew T. Schelp on Thursday sentenced a Romanian national to 24 months in prison for targeting stores across the country with a sleight-of-hand fraud that netted at least $130,000 in money and property.

Suras Rostas, now 22, traveled the country from roughly April 2023 to October 2024, conducting at least 45 fraudulent transactions at Walmart stores in at least 18 different states. After cashiers scanned the merchandise or began processing an electronic money transfer, Rostas counted money into piles that added up to at least the full amount of the transaction and handed the piles one at a time to cashiers. He then took the cash back, gathered it into a pile and slipped bills from the bottom of the stack into his pocket, sometimes with the aid of a confederate who would distract the cashiers. If a cashier tried to recount the cash, Rostas repeated those steps until the cashiers relented and put the cash into their drawers without recounting it. Each transaction cost the retailer hundreds or thousands of dollars. Rostas then regularly returned the merchandise for a full cash refund.

Rostas entered the country illegally in 2023 and immediately started his scheme, Assistant U.S. Attorney Justin Ladendorf said in court. Despite arrests and convictions, “he kept doing it,” Ladendorf told Judge Schelp. Rostas’ case is one of four similar cases being prosecuted here, Ladendorf said, because major retailers losing millions of dollars to similar schemes have reached out for help in dealing with the issue.

Judge Schelp ordered Rostas to repay $135,290 to Walmart. He also ordered Rostas’ sentence to run consecutive to pending cases in Idaho, Arkansas, Florida and St. Louis County, Missouri.

“Frankly, I don’t appreciate your disdain for America and American laws,” Judge Schelp told Rostas during Thursday’s sentencing hearing in U.S. District Court in St. Louis.

Rostas pleaded guilty in September to two counts of wire fraud. 

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations, the Missouri State Highway Patrol and the Arnold Police Department investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Justin Ladendorf prosecuted the case.