Scammer faked deployments, took free plane rides

#Veterans #Deployment #FreePlaneRides

It takes an especially devious mind to come up with some of this stuff. We have to wonder what staff at the Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General think when they’re investigating certain crimes. They probably aren’t smiling.

For example, this one: A veteran managed to grab 130 free airline flights while pretending he was on active duty and being sent on military assignments. The guy was an airline baggage handler, but only for one week. Then he showed his airline employer a fistful of fake military documents that said he needed eight months off for deployment.

During that time, he jetted around the globe using the free flights benefit of employees, hitting all the hot-spot tourist destinations, from the Caribbean to South America to Europe and all points in between – and documented the trips online. At the end of that period, he gave the airline more fake military documents and managed to extend the whole scam for another two years.

Meanwhile, while still employed by the airline and pretending he was entitled to free unlimited flights, he snagged a job as a federal air marshal. Also meanwhile, he took a job at a sporting goods retailer and pulled the same “I have to go do my military service” scam, likely so he could get the store discount. It didn’t help that the fake military orders he created were allegedly signed by someone who didn’t exist.

The scammer’s undoing began in part because he wanted to take his federal air marshal weapon with him on the plane and there was confusion about why an airline employee baggage handler, which he still claimed to be, would be carrying an air marshal weapon while on personal travel and while he was supposedly still in the military.

Once investigators started digging into it, they unearthed a jaw-dropping 130 flights the scammer had taken. I hope he enjoyed his vacations in the sun because he could be looking at 20 years in the slammer.

(c) 2025 King Features Synd., Inc.