An airline passenger nicknamed the ‘Fraud of the Skies’ ended up stealing £25,000 worth of duty-free goods over the course of three years, having exploited a gap in banking security while travelling to and from his second home in Spain.
After realising online transactions could only be processed after planes landed, Keith James, 63, used bank cards with no credit facilities mid-flight to purchase perfume, alcohol and cigarettes.
Between May 2016 and April 2019, the married dad of six – who had been diagnosed with bladder cancer and told he was terminally ill – filled his bags with items from the duty free trolley, before making a quick getaway after touchdown before cabin crew could download passenger purchases.
After his transactions were rejected due to ‘insufficient funds’, James, from Wythenshawe in Manchester, would ignore legal payments demanding payments, and even continued to fly with the same operators.
However, he was eventually arrested at Manchester Airport as he got off a flight from Spain, later admitting hundreds of illicit mid-flight transactions for pleasure, claiming he had wanted to ‘get one over’ on banks as they were ‘keeping customers in debt’, and that he gifted all the items to family.
The total amount of the goods he stole was worth £25,556.40, with Jet2 losing out on £12,459.50 in the scam and the now-defunct Thomas Cook losing £13,100.19.
In a statement, James said: ”I’m been an idiot haven’t I. But the diagnosis has…
