A Cameroonian man was sentenced in federal court for helping run a $2 million airline ticket hacking scheme that targeted customers travel technology companies, including one in Cobb County.
Eric Donys Simeu, 32, was sentenced to four years and 10 months in prison for his involvement in an online phishing campaign, according to a Monday news release from federal prosecutors.
Simeu was also ordered to pay $162,146 to Travelport, which has its office at 300 Galleria Parkway near the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre.
Travelport acts as an online clearinghouse between travel agents and ticket companies. Agents buy tickets using the technology of Travelport or another global distribution system, or GDS, to get tickets to customers.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported in 2014 that Travelport had 3,600 employees worldwide.
Simeu’s hacking targeted Travelport and another GDS — Sabre, based in Southlake, Texas — between July 2011 to September 2014, according to an indictment.
The con was that Simeu and others sent phishing emails to travel agents with links to fake websites that looked like real login websites, the indictment said.
Those websites prompted the agents to log in with their credentials.
Simeu and others then used that login information to enter the servers of Travelport along with Sabre and fraudulently sell real airline tickets to people, many in West Africa, for fractions of the actual cost, according to the news release.
The federal prosecutors’ office said it could not detail how Simeu and others benefited from the $2 million ploy other than Simeu used at least one of the tickets.
On Sept. 3, 2014, Simeu bought a ticket for himself under a fake name from Togo to Casablanca and then Paris, the indictment said.
After his indictment, Simeu was extradited from France on May 19, 2016, and was sentenced six days later. He had been in French custody since his arrest in September 2014.
Simeu filed for an appeal Tuesday, court records show.
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