According to security researcher Brian Krebs, the fraudsters organised fake online auctions for boats, cars and other high-value items, ripping consumers off for at least $10 million in total.
The Krebs on Security researcher says that a statement from the US Justice Department reports the scams as following a familiar modus operandi.
"Conspirators located in Romania would post items for sale such as cars, motorcycles and boats on internet auction and online websites. They would instruct interested buyers to wire transfer the purchase money to a fictitious name they claimed to be an employee of an escrow company", he says in his latest security posting.
"Once the victim wired the funds, the co-conspirators in Romania would text information about the wire transfer to co-conspirators in the US - known as `arrows' - to enable them to retrieve the wired funds", he adds.
Krebs goes on to say they the Romanian fraudsters would also provide the arrows with instructions as to where to send the funds after retrieval.
The US arrows, says the security researcher, would visit Western Union or Moneygram offices and, using fake passports and drivers' licences in the name of the recipient, drawn the cash, wiring the proceeds - less a commission - to overseas destinations, usually in Romania.
Krebs notes that, since February of this year, FBI agents and the US Justice Department authorities in Florida, Pennsylvania and Texas have arrested or charged at least 21 Romanians and Moldovans. 13 of those arrested, he says, have pleaded guilty, whilst three remain at large.
Citing a report on the Adevaril.ro newswire, the security researcher says that a further 90 people have been arrested across Romania.
The newswire also estimates that the fraudsters got away with as much as $20 million - twice the estimate of the US Justice Department.
"Some of the Romanians arrested were from the town of Râmnicu Vâlcea - a location that has become synonymous with online auction fraud", says Krebs, adding that in January, Wired published a report on how the town - with its 120,000 inhabitants - had become `cybercrime central.'