![\"Front](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/b43a31134f4de2a0d3a745c6683feca8.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nA Romanian citizen has been jailed for his role in a global “distraction fraud” operation that fleeced tens of thousands of dollars from elderly Australian shoppers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Vasile Bombonel, 38, was sentenced at Wollongong Local Court on Tuesday after he pleaded guilty to 25 offences related to 13 victims aged between 55 and 90.<\/p>\n
Bombonel, who was in Australia illegally, targeted his victims at shopping centres in Sydney, the Illawarra, South Coast, Southern Highlands, and the Mid North Coast between March 3 and March 23.\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Vasile Bombonel was sentenced in the Wollongong Local Court. (ABC Illawarra: Kelly Fuller)<\/p>\n
Court documents stated Bombonel was involved in a transnational fraud syndicate, but little was known about his international associates other than that they are subject to arrest warrants worldwide.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As part of the operation, Bombonel would approach shoppers in supermarkets or near ATMs, claiming they had dropped cash or their wallet.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As they checked their belongings, an unidentified associate would snatch the victim’s cards and flee.<\/p>\n
Supermarket scam spree<\/p>\n
On one occasion, Bombonel’s associate struck up a conversation with a 75-year-old woman who was loading shopping into her car boot at the Corrimal Coles car park on the afternoon of March 4.<\/p>\n
While she was distracted, Bombonel opened the driver’s door and stole the woman’s bank card before making four ATM withdrawals, totalling $764.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On another occasion in March, Bombonel nudged a 73-year-old woman from behind at a Fairy Meadow supermarket, causing her handbag to fall off her shoulder.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She realised her bank card was missing after she retrieved her bag from the ground, later discovering $1,550 in withdrawals had been made at ATMs across Wollongong.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bombonel also approached a 78-year-old woman at Coles in Vincentia, claiming she dropped three $5 notes and insisting he help her by placing them in her wallet.<\/p>\n
He discreetly stole her bank card, which was later used to purchase $1,744 worth of items and withdraw $1,400 from an ATM.<\/p>\n
Bombonel stole a total of $27,493 from his 13 victims, and flew to Queensland after his crimes in New South Wales.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Court documents showed investigators caught him by tracking CCTV footage, mobile phone records, travel records, identifying vehicles of interest, and repeat offending using the same distraction techniques.\u00a0<\/p>\n
‘Very sorry about this’<\/p>\n
Appearing in court from Cessnock jail, Bombonel listened to proceedings through a Romanian interpreter.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I’m very sorry about this,” he told the court.<\/p>\n
Local Court Judge Michael Love imposed a jail term of three years and four months, with a non-parole period of two years and six months.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bombonel will be eligible for parole in October 2028.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Romanian citizen has been jailed for his role in a global “distraction fraud” operation that fleeced tens…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18887,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[11322,22,21,18542,18540,18543,18538,18539,14110,9517,18541],"class_list":["post-18886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-atm","tag-au","tag-austrlia","tag-distraction-fraud","tag-elderly","tag-elderly-targeted","tag-global-fraud","tag-romanian","tag-scam","tag-supermarkets","tag-vasile-bombonel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18886\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}