Two men have been indicted on charges they defrauded Delta and Northwest Airlines of $22 million between 2004 and 2013.
Michael Yedor and Paul Anderson have been charged with conspiracy to commit mail fraud and 96 counts of mail fraud.
Anderson, 57, of Apple Valley, Minn., had worked for Northwest since 1979. When Delta and Northwest merged in 2009, Anderson became an employee of Delta.
According to the indictment, Anderson and Yedor, 62, of Los Angeles, engaged in a scheme to defraud Northwest and, later, Delta, by submitting false invoices on behalf of a company that Yedor purportedly owned, named Airborne Voice and Data.
The invoices sought payment from Delta and Northwest for services provided by Airborne Voice and Data that the pair knew the company had never provided.
Yedor sent the fraudulent invoices to Anderson, who approved them, causing the airlines to pay about $22 million to Airborne over a nine-year span. In exchange for approving the invoices, Anderson received a portion of the proceeds.
The two were indicted on June 10, with the indictment unsealed on June 21, only after Yedor was arrested after authorities located him and his yacht.
“The longevity and scope of the scheme to defraud Delta is simply astonishing,” said United States Attorney Sally Quillian Yates.
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