An Italian student has been charged with attempting to embezzle €180,000 ($204,000) out of Sicily’s local government over a clever airline boarding pass scam that he took to the extreme.
The elaborate criminal plot is connected to the fact that Sicily offers discounts on flights for its 4.7 million residents between the island, which sits just off the coast of the mainland in the Mediterranean Sea, and the rest of the country.
The idea behind the multi-million-euro scheme is to ensure that residents aren’t isolated from the mainland due to a lack of financial resources, thereby maintaining the island’s connections with the rest of Italy.
Why does Sicily offer discounts on flights?
Residents are entitled to discounts on flights to Rome and Milan of between 25% and 67% up to a maximum of €75 for most people or as much as €150 for those on low incomes or living with a disability, the aviation news site AeroTelegraph reports.
When residents book flights with Italian flag carrier ITA Airways or Aeroitalia, the discount is automatically applied at checkout, but if tickets are booked with other major airlines in Italy like Ryanair, residents have to apply for a refund from the Sicilian government.
The process is deliberately pretty simple–all you have to do is submit your boarding pass on a dedicated web portal, and the government will wire whatever money is owed to your bank account.
In 2024, the travel discount scheme set Italian taxpayers back €33 million.
How the student took advantage on a massive scale
A student is now accused of taking advantage of a flaw in this scheme by trying to swindle the Sicilian government out of €180,000 by submitting fake boarding passes to get refunds on flights he never took.
According to Italian media, the young map used photo editing software to alter real boarding passes and then submitted these over and over again on a massive scale.
In the space of just nine months, the student submitted 2,600 boarding passes, including 892 in October 2024 alone. On some occasions, the suspect submitted boarding passes, which would have meant he was on three flights per day.
The government had already paid out €86,000 in refunds before officials became suspicious and called in the police. Of the thousands of boarding passes the man submitted, only three were allegedly found to be genuine.
Italy’s financial police were called in, and the student now faces charges of misappropriating public funds and money laundering. Most of the money that had been paid out has already been recovered.
