Three people ran a coordinated gym locker theft operation across three provinces before Edmonton Police caught up with them in Winnipeg.
Livia Cozma, 41, Orlando-Constantin Vaduva, 52, and Bogdan Todica, 40 were arrested in Winnipeg in April 2026. They now face a combined 59 charges including multiple counts of theft of credit card, fraud under $5,000, and theft under $5,000. The total value of fraudulent purchases in Edmonton alone is estimated at more than $25,000.
The investigation began in March 2026 after several credit cards were reported stolen during a locker break-in at a fitness facility in northeast Edmonton, followed immediately by the stolen cards being used at nearby businesses. That pattern break in, steal cards, use them fast before they get cancelled is what got police attention.
How the operation worked
The three suspects were not working independently. Police determined through investigation that two of them carried out the locker break-ins while the third waited nearby to take the stolen credit cards and immediately make fraudulent purchases at surrounding businesses.
The division of labour is deliberate. The people breaking into lockers never touch the point-of-sale terminal. The person making purchases never enters the gym. Each role is harder to connect to the other without sustained surveillance and investigation. It is a more sophisticated operation than a single person stealing a wallet.
By the time police had built their case, the group had been linked to at least 18 separate incidents at fitness facilities across Edmonton. They had also hit gyms in Ontario and Manitoba. When Edmonton Police started closing in, the suspects were already in Winnipeg which is why the arrest required coordination with three separate agencies.
How they got caught
EPS's Virtual Investigation Unit built the case and coordinated with the Halton Regional Police Service in Ontario, the Winnipeg Police Service in Manitoba, and the Canada Border Services Agency. The cross-provincial coordination is what made the arrest possible and it is exactly the kind of case that historically fell through the cracks when suspects crossed provincial lines.
"This investigation illustrates our ever-increasing capacity to work across provincial boundaries to locate and charge those who attempt to travel to other jurisdictions to evade local police and continue criminal activity elsewhere," said Cst. Binoy Prabhu of the EPS Virtual Investigation Unit.
The Virtual Investigation Unit handles fraud and financial crime investigations that require digital evidence, surveillance footage analysis, and cross-jurisdictional coordination. Credit card theft that immediately converts to fraudulent purchases at nearby businesses leaves a specific digital trail transaction records, timestamps, surveillance footage at point-of-sale locations that can be assembled into a case even without a witness who saw the locker being broken into.
How to protect yourself at the gym
This case is a good reason to reconsider what you bring into a locker room.
The standard advice from police and fraud prevention organizations: do not bring your credit cards into a gym if you do not need them. Leave your wallet in your car or at home and bring only what you need a phone, a key fob, cash for a post-workout coffee if that is your habit. Most gym transactions can be handled with a tap from your phone anyway.
If you use a locker, use the best lock available. Combination locks are harder to defeat quickly than key locks. Padlocks with hardened steel shackles resist cutting. A determined thief with time can beat most locks but gym locker thieves work fast and move on if a locker takes more than a few seconds.
Report any suspicious behaviour at your gym immediately. The March incident that started this investigation was reported promptly and that report is what gave EPS enough to begin building a case that eventually reached Winnipeg.
If you believe your credit card was stolen at a gym in Edmonton between approximately January and April 2026, contact EPS at 780-423-4567 or submit an anonymous tip to Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 or p3tips.com/250.
Sources:
Edmonton Police Service news release, Police arrest three in cross-provincial gym locker break-in series, June 8, 2026 (edmontonpolice.ca)
