Police are seeking four family members in connection with a brazen September 4 heist at an Indian-American jewelry store on Hillcroft. Police say Ion Miclescu, Ileana Miclescu, Mirela Miclescu and Constantin Miclescu (and at least three other accomplices) made off with over $1.6 million in gold and jewels.
According to a criminal complaint filed on Tuesday, the Miclescus and their friends entered the store as soon as it opened. While some of them distracted employees with a barrage of questions, Ileana Miclescu crawled under a counter, opened a safe and shoveled the loot into a bag. The complaint goes on to state that Constantin Miclescu buzzed Ileana out of the store, and then the rest of the band left behind her. None were in custody as of this writing.
Mirela Miclescu, 30, was popped this summer for misdemeanor theft. In August she was found guilty of swiping some steaks, chicken and pork chops and did two days in jail. At the time of her arrest, she listed a Hillcroft apartment as her address. She did not sign the judgment against her, suggesting that she might not be literate.
One can't help but wonder if the Miclescus are Romani people, or Gypsies as they are more commonly known.
The chaos / distraction technique is a hallmark of Romani scams since time immemorial, and there are a great many Romani people of Romanian descent. (And none of this is to say all or most Romani are thieves, or that all Romanians are Romani.)
Interestingly, Houston cops arrested several other people with Romanian names over the weekend. Last Friday, Houston cops picked up Hermena Chiciu, Liviu Radulean, Denasirda Trifu, Ovidiu Bil Serdaru, Joana Vaduva, and Sabrina Chiciu and charged them all with evading arrest. All have since bonded out.
Two of these people declined to give police an address, and three others told the cops they lived in a Red Roof Inn on the West Sam Houston Tollway. So, a bunch of Itinerants with Romanian names who (allegedly) run from the cops...Hmmm.
Roving bands of light-fingered Gypsies hauling off South Asian jewels by the million-dollar sackful...Yep, we're an international city all right.
Fox's Isiah Carey filed a report featuring an elderly firecracker of a Gypsy-scammed victim here.
Three other Gypsy women were busted after they allegedly used a child and a story about a lost kitten to scam another elderly woman.
