A man arrested in an Airport area motel room Dec. 1 was indicted today by a federal grand jury on three counts of identity theft.

Gabriel Cirlan, 32, is charged with attaching his own card reader to automatic teller machines to steal bank account information and cash. The elaborate scheme also involved Cirlan allegedly hiding computer cameras near the ATMs to steal personal identification numbers from people using the ATMs. With the information, he would then allegedly use an encoder to turn Bass Pro Shops and AMEX gift cards into bank ATM cards.

Cirlan was arrested after undercover drug agents saw suspicious activity in Cirlan’s room at the Holiday Inn Select, 2240 Democrat Road. The agents for the West Tennessee Drug Task Force found Cirlan, his sister-in-law, Allison Osan, computer equipment and what appeared to be 54 credit cards, most with PINs written on the back. The drug agents called the U.S. Secret Service.

In an affidavit, Secret Service agent Nicholas Jameson said Osan told him she had watched as Cirlan built the ATM devices over a two-week period. She said he made bootleg ATM cards with the information he stored on his computer from the card reader he attached to at least one ATM in Deerfield Beach, Fla. Cirlan allegedly used some of the cards at ATM machines in Tunica casinos.

Jameson interviewed Cirlan separately.

“Cirlan admitted that all the equipment and plastic cards in the hotel room belonged to him, but he merely used them as a ‘hobby’ and did not steal people’s personal information,” the affidavit reads. “Cirlan had no excuse for why many of the assorted plastic cards with magnetic stripes had PINs written on the back of them.”

Investigators said 15 of the accessed bank accounts belong to Washington Mutual Mastercard holders in Florida and Washington.

Bank of America officials tracked 11 more numbers on the bootleg cards in Cirlan’s motel room to an ATM in Deerfield Beach. The bank produced photos from the ATM camera showing Cirlan attaching and removing devices from the ATM, according to the affidavit.

Osan is not charged in the indictment.

Cirlan, a Romanian citizen, remains in federal custody because his visa expired two years ago.