A casual enquiry on how to open a Skywards air miles account with Emirates airlines led to the discovery of a network of fake accounts opened and maintained by a Kenyan customer service official and his wife who works at Emirates airline’s reservations desk.
An executive who was attending to the request of the British national who called was in for a surprise when it was found an account already existed in that name.
Upon verification, it was discovered that the caller never opened any account with Skywards.
But every detail provided, barring the e-mail address, was a perfect match with the caller’s.
That led to a search to find several accounts with the same e-mail address which was subsequently traced back to the Sheikh Zayed Road office of the airline where the 35-year-old man identified as IOO worked.
His wife DAO, 33, was also found to have connived in the crime in which they allegedly transferred air miles of unsuspecting passengers to these fake accounts.
A security officer Ali Rida testified before the prosecution and said it was shocking to find the fake account that led to the discovery of many others.
The case that came up for hearing at a Dubai court charged them with using fake accounts to collect Dh2.6 million worth of air miles over a period of time.
Emirates 24|7
