Ex-Travel Agent Gets 9 Years in Credit Card Scam
A former travel agent was sentenced in Los Angeles on Monday to nine years in prison for a credit card scam that bilked an airline ticket organization and major airlines out of $1 million.
U.S. District Judge Laughlin Waters also ordered Mohammad Masood, 46, to pay $350,000 in restitution.
Masood pleaded guilty last fall to four counts of mail, wire and credit fraud in setting up schemes through two travel agencies.
In the first, Masood used the now-defunct Pega Seas as a front to run up $39,000 in charges on stolen American Express card numbers within a few weeks in 1986.
In the second, Masood and others sold discount tickets from Sun Tours ‘N Travel, formerly of San Bernardino, to customers for cash in late 1986 and early 1987, but never paid the airlines for the tickets and kept the money.
Masood tried to conceal the thefts by claiming that the tickets had been paid for with American Express card numbers that turned out to be phony.
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