An Atlanta man has been indicted on federal charges that he fraudulently booked airline reservations for customers by pretending to be a flight crew member.
Gilbert Myers Jr, 37, was taken into custody Thursday afternoon at a Beverly Hills hotel after he agreed to meet a potential client who was actually an undercover FBI agent.
The indictment claims that Myers would call Los Angeles County airports while telling them he worked on a flight crew for another airline. He then gave the airline the name of a customer, the airline he supposedly worked for, a fake employee identification number and a date of hire.
He would then get boarding passes and stand-by tickets — which airline employees pay little or nothing for — and give them to his customers.
Myers typically charged his customers $2,000 for one year of free flights, the indictment alleges.
Myers’ involvement went beyond just acquiring passage for his customers, officials said. He would advise the fraudulent travelers how to avoid detection by dressing appropriately and how to answer questions about their employment at another airline.
The travelers would then board planes listed as employees of other airlines. All travelers were still subject to full security screenings by the TSA.
Though the indictment only details a small number of flights, investigators believe Myers booked hundreds of flights on airlines such as JetBlue and United.
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