A 45-year-old man from Romania has admitted to his role in a series of digital break-ins that targeted an Oregon state government office and various other victims across the United States. Catalin Dragomir, a resident of Constanta, Romania, pleaded guilty on Thursday, 19 February 2026, to charges of theft of personal data and illegal entry into protected computer systems.
Details of the Security Breach and Financial Toll
This case dates back to June 2021. Court documents show that Dragomir managed to enter a computer network belonging to an Oregon state office without permission. Dragomir reportedly did not just stop at entering the system; he actually tried to sell access to the government computer to a potential buyer.
To prove he had control over the network, he even handed over samples of personal details belonging to real people stored on that system. This act of taking someone’s private details to commit fraud is legally known as aggravated identity theft.
The Oregon office was not Dragomir’s only target. Legal records reveal that he also sold access to several other American networks. These combined attacks led to total financial losses of at least $250,000.
The Road to Sentencing
As we know it, catching people who commit crimes from another country can be difficult. However, after a long search, authorities caught up with Dragomir. He was arrested in Romania in November 2024 and was eventually brought to the US in January 2025. According to a press release from the US Department of Justice (DoJ), the FBI Portland Field Office led the investigation with help from a firm called Darkweb IQ.
During the court proceedings, Dragomir pleaded guilty to one count of “obtaining information from a protected computer” and one count of aggravated identity theft, DoJ’s press release notes. He is scheduled to be sentenced on 26 May 2026.
For the first charge, he could get up to five years. On top of that, he must serve a mandatory “consecutive sentence of two years” for the identity theft charges. This means the second sentence must be served after the first one ends, rather than at the same time.
It is worth noting that the DoJ has been very active recently in tackling similar crimes. Earlier this month, the DoJ secured a 30-year sentence for Rui-Siang Lin, the Incognito Market operator. In 2025, North Korean nationals Jin Sung-Il, Pak Jin-Song, and several others, including US citizens Erick Ntekereze Prince and Emanuel Ashtor, were charged for running a Laptop Farm scheme.
This operation tricked at least 64 US companies into hiring foreign IT workers using stolen identities. Since 2020, the DoJ’s specialist cybercrime unit has secured convictions for over 180 criminals and helped return over $350 million to victims.
Deeba Ahmed
