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By Bill Goldston |
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April 2, 2010 -
Victoria Scardigno, a former sales agent for Continental Airlines at According to the unsealed complaint unsealed in Manhattan federal court, while employed at the airline, Scardigno misappropriated from its offices hundreds of vouchers that the airline uses to compensate customers who had already paid for travel on Continental Airlines for flight delays, cancellations or situations in which customers were denied boarding due to, for example, overbooking. |
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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 anywhere in the world. Scardigno sold over
1,750 such vouchers, at a purchase price of approximately $500 to
$600. Scardigno took in approximately $1 million from the fraud,
which was deposited directly into her personal bank account.
In fact, 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. Scardigno, 32, of |
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"Victoria
Scardigno allegedly tricked hundreds of unsuspecting air travelers,
promising them the benefits of a plan that turned out to be nothing more
than a frequent fraud program. Instead of the tickets they paid for, the
would-be passengers received worthless pieces of paper, while Scardigno
allegedly got nearly a million dollars of their hard-earned money in
return.
?This Office will
continue to work closely with the FBI and corporate security departments
like Continental's to make sure those who hatch predatory frauds like
this one do not go unpunished.
"When it comes to
dreaming up fraudulent schemes, it seems the sky is the limit. Would-be
swindlers keep devising new ways to attempt to defraud. But they all
make the same age-old mistake: they don't think we'll catch them" said
United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Preet
Bharara. |
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