They steal millions of "Frequent Flyers" points and miles, 6 arrested
For eight long years they managed to accumulate millions of miles and "Frequent Flyers" points undisturbed, traveling a lot you will say...and [...]
American Airlines
Oneworld
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For eight long years have managed to accumulate undisturbed million miles and "Frequent Flyers" points, traveling a lot you'll say...and yet they really have them stolen!
Leading the gang is a Polish hacker, Wojciech Borkowski, along with him five other accomplices who operated in America.
Aircraft, Aircrafts, American Airlines, plane, planes, Livery, Exterior
Borkowski allegedly hacked the personal accounts of thousands of users in order to subtract miles and points of the AAdvance collection, program loyalty of American Airlines which also allows prize tickets to be redeemed on all One World alliance starting with British Airways, Finnair, Iberia, Japan Airlines, Qantas, Qatar and many others.
But how did they?
Basically Borkowski, after hacking the accounts, bought tickets with the unfortunate people's miles and headed them in the names of other travelers, to whom they then resold the same flights at prices that are certainly advantageous compared to standard fares.
Borkowski's clients were mostly from the U.S. They gave all personal details and indicated the itineraries they desired to the accomplices, at which point Borkowski generated the tickets with the miles stolen from the victims' frequent flyer accounts and sent them to accomplices who would then they were reselling to buyers.
Now Borkowski risks up to 20 years for aggravated telephone fraud, fraud and theft; the accomplices decided to bargain and risk 5 years with fines of 250.000$
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