A Michigan travel agent has been jailed for nearly eight years for booking discounted air fares with bogus military ID cards.
Sandra M. White of Corporate Travel Consultants/Travel By Design Inc. was found guilty in June of wire fraud and identity theft and was also ordered to pay $572,000 in restitution.
The scam was first spotted by American Airlines when it discovered some of the agency’s customers were getting discounted fares they were not eligible to.
American, United, Delta and Lufthansa were defrauded out of $784,000 between 2003 and July, 2011.
White used counterfeited Armed Forces Identification Cards to book the tickets, which were quickly found to be bogus.
ID cards showed photos of males "whose grooming standards did not remotely comply with active-duty grooming standards for any of the Armed Services,” court documents said.
