The couple was ordered to pay $16,566 in restitution to the $21.7 billion America First Federal Credit Union in Riverdale and $6,264 in restitution to Cyprus. The restitution funds will come from $40,000 that police investigators secured after executing a search warrant of a house where Donica and Turtulea were living with their son.

Last December, Cyprus fraud investigators informed Taylorsville police that multiple members’ credit card information had been compromised and was being used at various ATMs to withdraw funds, court documents showed.

After reviewing security camera video, Cyprus fraud investigators noticed a consistent pattern of a young man going from one ATM to another ATM, according to Ryan Koller, vice president of risk management and compliance at Cyprus.

“I know we had 10 to 12 members impacted here at Cyprus,” Koller said. “And we do collaborate through a fraud channel with other local institutions and law enforcement. So we did reach out to that group and gave them a heads up on the activity we were seeing.”

The credit union reimbursed the funds stolen from member accounts.

Police identified the young man as S.D., a 17-year-old juvenile, after tracking down the license plate number of a car he was driving that appeared on ATM security video. The car was rented by Turtulea. With this information, police were able to determine that the juvenile was living with his parents in Salt Lake City.

When police executed a search warrant at the residence of Turtulea and Donica, investigators found multiple skimming devices that were surreptitiously installed on ATMs to scan financial card information. Police also found 29 SD storage cards that contained financial transaction information from more than eight financial institution payment cards. Investigators also found thousands of dollars of unidentified stolen merchandise and $40,000 in cash, according to court records.

Police said this was one of the biggest fraud schemes they had investigated in years, noting that it affected more than 900 people and stemmed mostly from convenience store ATMs, where the skimming devices were installed to scan payment card information, according to local media reports. Cyprus said skimming devices were not found on their ATMs.

After the fraudsters installed skimming devices on the convenience store ATMs, they managed to collect financial data to create new cards that were used to steal funds from banks, credit unions and other merchants, according to Koller.

At America First, members that were negatively impacted in this case have been made whole.

“Criminals employ many methods to commit fraud, and our security experts work around the clock to prevent this type of harmful activity,” Robby Johnson, fraud operations director at America First, said. “We’re grateful for the cooperative efforts between America First and law enforcement to hold criminals accountable. This is another reminder of how important it is that all credit unions prioritize educating and helping members keep their information, cards and other assets secure.”