A man who posed as cabin crew and managed to fly for free 120 times has been convicted after finally being caught.
Echoing Frank Abagnale Jr’s escapades in the 1960s – when the then teenager famously posed as a Pan Am pilot and jetted around the world – Tiron Alexander managed to evade capture for six years.
On June 5th, a federal jury in Florida convicted the former airline employee of entering into a secure area of an airport by false pretenses and wire fraud.
From 2018 to 2024, the Florida-based 35-year-old accessed flights on an airline carrier’s website that were reserved for cabin crew and pilots.
Posing as a flight attendant, Alexander managed to board 34 flights with the carrier without detection, after being able to enter in cabin crew badge number details into the airline’s flight application website.
A statement on the website of the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida detailed his deception.
It read: ‘Alexander claimed through the airline carrier’s website application process – a process that required an applicant to select whether they were a pilot or flight attendant and provide their employer, date of hire, and badge number information – that he worked for seven different airlines and had approximately 30 different badge numbers and dates of hire.’
Further evidence found that he had taken a similar approach with three other airlines, with prosecutors believing the amount of flights he boarded by pretending to be a working flight attendant was around 120.
Fraudster: A Florida caught last month convicted Tiron Alexander, 35, of wire fraud and entering into a secure area of an airport by false pretenses – it’s thought he managed to board 120 flights without paying by pretending to be cabin crew
After an investigation by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), Alexander was arrested and convicted last month.
The fraudster is scheduled to be sentenced on August 25th.
Alexander had, according to the evidence submitted in court, worked for Delta for two years from 2010 to 2012 as a global ticketing support representative.
He was also familiar with the role of flight attendant, having spent a year working for Atlantic Southeast Airlines from 2013 to 2014, while another stint in the skies saw him employed as cabin crew for US regional airline Republic Airways.
Trial evidence also showed Alexander had posed as a flight attendant on three other airlines, and he had ultimately booked more than 120 free flights by claiming he was a flight attendant, according to the announcement.
According to information published by Fortune, it’s thought the frauds mostly took place from Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.
The publication reports that screenshots suggest he was flying on Spirit Airlines, a Florida-based flyer.
Alexander’s deception appears straight out of the Frank W. Abagnale Jr. handbook, which inspired the 1980 book, 2002 blockbuster movie – starring Leonardo DiCaprio, and 2011 Broadway musical.
Leonardo DiCaprio in a still from 2002’s Catch Me If You Can, which was based on the story of Frank W. Abagnale Jr, who managed to travel the world by posing as a pilot while he was still a teen in the late 60s
Abagnale was a clever teen who posed as a Pan Am pilot to travel the world in the 1960s; he raked in $2.5 million passing off bad cheques – all while evading the FBI and Interpol.
Once one of the most formidable forgers, Mr Abagnale has since changed his ways and now advises governments and businesses on cybersecurity, identity theft, and scams.
Described as the ‘ultimate conman’ for managing to evade the FBI for years, last year he warned that AI will create a ‘tsunami’ of scammers just like him.
‘Anything today can be replicated, duplicated, counterfeited, deep-faked, or AI-manipulated,’ he said, adding: ‘Technology breeds crime. It always has and always will.’
