There are several threads that mention the guy who went from Copenhagen to Los Angeles without a ticket. More has come out about this. It's astounding how he got away with it. I figured this was the best place for it.
In November, a “Russian economist” without a boarding pass:
- was caught by airport security in Copenhagen
- had two passports confiscated by police because he was on an expired visa and didn't have a ticket
- was allowed to wander unmonitored around an international airport terminal
- unsuccessfully tried to sneak onto a flight to Bangkok using a “piece of paper written in Russian”
- stayed overnight in the terminal
- tried to board another flight to London the next morning and was turned away again
- still was not detained
- successfully snuck onto a flight to Los Angeles without any travel documents
- tried to sit in business class
- scammed his way into two meals by repeatedly changing the seat he was in
The article requires a login so here is some more.
In its new filings, the government alleges that Ochigava took the metro to Copenhagen airport on the afternoon of November 3. “Although defendant was not a ticketed passenger on any flight departing that day, airport surveillance footage showed defendant tailgating an unsuspecting passenger through a security turnstile to enter ‘Finger C,’ a terminal for non-Schengen [international flights out of Europe] departures,” the filing says. “Danish border police later processed defendant and determined that he was a Schengen overstay on his Israeli passport and did not have any stamps or visas in his Russian passport.”
The filing says he did not have any boarding pass for any flight, and that Danish police seized both of his passports and ordered him to stay in the terminal until further notice. Ochigava did not stay in the terminal. Ochigava attempted to board a Scandinavian airlines flight to Bangkok using “a Russian identification document and a piece of paper written in Russian.” He was turned away by gate attendants. He then spent the night in the terminal and tried to board a flight to London the next morning, but wasn’t allowed to board. Apparently during all of this time, Ochigava was allowed to continue roaming freely in the terminal, which, in a later document, the feds and the airline express frustration about.
Ochigava then successfully boarded a flight to LAX without a ticket. The filing doesn’t explain specifically how he was able to do this, but emails between US and European law enforcement and the airline say “he then likely tailgated at the boarding gate.”
https://www.404media.co/russian-eco...k-onto-flight-to-lax-without-a-ticket-anyway/