Romanian national accused of defrauding Columbia Walmart with ‘sleight-of-hand’ trick

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

A Romanian national has been charged in federal court with wire fraud after authorities claim he would use a “sleight-of-hand” trick on Walmart cashiers.

Federal court documents involving Hozu Rostas, 25, were unsealed on Thursday. Court documents say Rostas is in ICE custody.

Court documents allege Rostas would “shortchange” cashiers when buying merchandise and would then exchange the receipts for a full refund at other stores. The indictment lists the Conley Road Walmart in Columbia as the location he went to on June 7.

Court documents say after cashiers scanned the merchandise, Rostas would count out cash into separate piles and hand one at a time to the cashiers. After he gave the cashiers separate piles of cash “that added up to at least the full amount owed for the transaction, he took the cash back from the cashiers and gathered it into a single pile,” documents claim.

The indictment says before he gave the pile of cash back to cashiers, “he held the cash close to his body with both hands and used one of his hands to furtively take some of the cash from the bottom of the pile, which he then held until he could place the money into his pants pocket.”

“At the same time that ROSTAS pocketed a portion of the cash, he used his other hand to give the cashiers what was left of the cash, deceiving the cashiers into believing that he had handed them back the full amount of the cash,” according to the indictment.

The probable cause statement alleges that on June 7, he shortchanged the Conley Road Walmart by roughly $2,500 while purchasing $3,196 of merchandise. He also allegedly did this the same day at the Moberly Walmart.

The statement claims Walmart had lost $167,000 from Rostas doing this from February 2025-June 2026 at Walmarts in multiple states.