Six men, including one from North Texas, have been arrested and charged in a federal court as part of an international conspiracy to steal millions of airline frequent flier miles and sell ill-gotten plane tickets to unsuspecting buyers.
A Polish suspect, Wojciech Borkowski, was turned over to the FBI last week after being extradited from his home country on charges of hacking into consumers’ airline mile accounts and using those miles to buy flights for customers paying him for tickets, according to the office of U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Erin Nealy Cox.
Borkowski, who government prosecutors identified as the leader, faces 20 years in prison for his part.
Law enforcement already had arrested five suspected accomplices in the United States, including Terran Oliver, 51, of Allen. Other suspects arrested include Semaj Lee, 55, of Oklahoma City; Derrick Booker, 49, of Spencer, Okla.; Yusuf Siddique, 30, of Folsom, Calif.; and Stanley Benton, 42, of Los Angeles. Those five men have all accepted plea deals and could face up to five years each in jail and a $250,000 fine, according to court records.
The scheme took place for eight years before authorities indicted the men in August 2019.
Borkowski, who lived in Zgierz, Poland, was arrested by Polish authorities in May and waited in a jail there for extradition to the U.S.
Authorities said customers in the U.S. would send their flight requests, personal information and a money order to one of the five men, who would then send it to Borkowski in Poland. Borkowski, who allegedly hacked into accounts to get access to frequent flier miles, would send a reservation number back to the U.S. to generate a boarding pass.
Frequent flier mile fraud isn’t an uncommon problem. The National Consumer League has warned passengers against account fraud and urged frequent fliers to use stronger passwords and keep an eye on their accounts.
