Thirty-eight defendants from across the United States have been charged with participating in a multimillion-dollar black market travel agent ring that used the stolen identities of thousands of victims to purchase airline tickets for customers.
"What began as a local law enforcement investigation ultimately exposed an extensive nationwide black market for airline tickets," said Beth Phillips, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri.

"Six federal indictments allege that 38 defendants used stolen credit and debit card information from thousands of identity theft victims to purchase tickets, which they sold to their customers at a steep discount," Phillips explained. "These separate criminal conspiracies resulted in an estimated total loss of more than $20 million to numerous domestic airline companies, financial institutions, other merchants, and cardholders."

Conspirators used several strategies to obtain the credit and debit card information of identity theft victims, according to the federal indictments. In some cases, conspirators allegedly purchased stolen information from unindicted co-conspirators in Bangladesh, Vietnam, and elsewhere. Some of the defendants allegedly stole customer information at hotels, a bank, and a customer call center where defendants were employed.

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