A GANG of Romanian criminals was last night behind bars for an organised scam which preyed on middle-aged women out shopping alone across the region.

The three men will be deported after finishing their sentences – which a judge said he was keeping short to spare the public from footing an even bigger bill.

Judge Peter Bowers told the trio he did not want taxpayers to be burdened more than necessary by the £2,600-a-day cost of keeping them imprisoned in this country.

The gang were part of an elaborate plot, involving others, to target shoppers, copy their cashcard PIN numbers as they paid for groceries and stage a fake emergency.

Shaun Dodds, prosecuting, told Teesside Crown Court they struck at least nine times in identical fashion across North Yorkshire and in Darlington.

One stood behind the woman and noted her number as she typed it in, another distracted her at her car, while the third stole her card from the vehicle.

Before the victim got home and realised her card was missing, the gang went to nearby cashpoint machines and took as much as they could from the account.

They were caught a fortnight after they first struck when a security guard at a store in Catterick Garrison, North Yorkshire, saw the “copier” acting suspiciously.

Police stopped their Vauxhall Vectra and a search of the car and the house they shared unearthed a pile of receipts and directions to local hospitals.

The fake emergency involved one of the men pretending to be diabetic, waving the unsuspecting shopper over to his car, and asking her where the nearest hospital was.

The court heard the three – Claudiu-Cornel Ion, 30, Zamfir Onica, 36, and Nicolae Onisei, 31 – had been in the UK only one or two days before the scam started.

Defence lawyers said the men left Romania after being promised legitimate work, but found themselves in debt and being told to join a gang as there was no real job.

Judge Bowers told them: “It was a professional, wellorganised criminal enterprise.

The offences are mean and greedy.

“It is essential to make an example of you, to put off others tempted to follow you.”

The men, who all gave the same address in Strathmore View, Leeds, stole or tried to withdraw a total of just over £3,500. They were each jailed for two-and-a-half years.