THE HAGUE: Police have arrested 118 people in a globally-coordinated swoop on plane ticket credit card fraud, a billion-dollar organised crime industry, officials said yesterday.
Operation Global Airport Action at 80 airports in 45 countries was coordinated from Europol’s headquarters in The Hague, Interpol in Singapore and Latin American agency Ameripol in Bogota.
Police teams at airports from London to Manila arrested suspects who had used fraudulent credit card details to buy air tickets as they queued to board or landed at their destinations, said Europol Chief Rob Wainwright.
“It’s a billion-dollar a year problem for the airline industry... and the volume of traffic is huge,” Wainwright said during the two-day operation on Wednesday and Thursday.
Experts from credit card companies, including Visa and American Express, as well as airline representatives and police analysts worked together.
He said over 281 suspicious transactions were reported over the two days.
Wainwright said the operation took four months to put together and could not be mounted continuously. AFP
