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February 17, 2011 - Victoria Scardigno, a former sales
agent for Continental Airlines at
"Victoria Scardigno's low-rent Ponzi scheme took
advantage of unsuspecting air travelers who thought they
were buying vouchers for plane tickets when they were
really buying worthless pieces of paper. Now the only
trip she will be taking is to federal prison," said
Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara. According to the indictment and other court documents, as well as statements made during the proceedings in this case before U.S. District Court Judge John G. Koeltl, while employed at Continental, Scardigno misappropriated from its offices hundreds of vouchers that the airline uses to compensate customers for flight delays, cancellations, or situations in which customers were denied boarding because of overbooking, for example. |
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After
taking the vouchers, Scardigno hatched a scheme to sell them to
prospective passengers, on the fraudulent pretext that they
could be redeemed for a round-trip ticket to anywhere in the
world. Scardigno sold over 2,100 such vouchers at a purchase
price of approximately $500 to $600. Many of these vouchers were
promised for travel to
Continental Airlines offers no such voucher program, and
Scardigno's representations that the vouchers could be redeemed
for air travel were false. When passengers attempted to redeem
their vouchers through Scardigno, she used some of the fraud
proceeds to purchase tickets for these passengers, in order to
keep the fraudulent scheme going. As a result, since the cost of the tickets far exceeded the cost of the vouchers, most of the voucher purchasers were unable to redeem their vouchers. Scardigno used at least some of the illicit proceeds to pay off personal debts and to purchase thousands of dollars of luxury goods from stores such as Louis Vuitton and Coach. |
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