Say, where's kobokunkie? He hasn't been around for a while, oh well. http://www.dailybreeze.com/news/ci_18384250Nigerian man arrested at LAX on stowaway charges
By Art Marroquin Staff Writer
Posted: 06/30/2011 02:07:23 PM PDT
Updated: 06/30/2011 02:26:41 PM PDT
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A Nigerian man was arrested on stowaway charges for flying from New York to Los Angeles International Airport with an expired boarding pass that belonged to someone else, the FBI said today.
Olajide Oluwaseun Noibi, 24, was carrying at least 10 other airline tickets that didn't belong to him when he was arrested while trying to board a flight from LAX to Atlanta early Wednesday morning, according to an affidavit written by Kevin Hogg, an FBI special agent assigned to the airport.
Noibi faces a felony charge of being a stowaway, which could lead to a five-year prison term, Hogg wrote. He has not been charged with any other crimes.
Noibi is being held without bail and is scheduled to appear Friday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for July 13, while arraignment is set for July 18.
Among other things, the FBI is investigating how Noibi managed to get past airport security using a ticket that did not match the name on his University of Michigan student identification card, or how he obtained so many boarding passes.
Noibi told authorities that he used an expired airline ticket that was in someone else's name to board Virgin America Flight 415 from New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport to LAX on June 23.
The FBI were tipped off June 25 by an airport police dispatcher and the plane's captain, who said Noibi was not on the flight manifest, Hogg wrote.
After interviewing the flight's
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crew, Hogg said that the flight had already taken off when when Noibi was spotted in a seat that was supposed to be empty. When a flight attendant asked him for a boarding pass, Noibi handed over a ticket that had expired a day earlier and did not belong to him, Hogg wrote.
Noibi told the flight attendant he had missed his flight on the date displayed on the ticket.
The flight attendant then asked Noibi for identification and he handed over the student ID card bearing his real name. The ticket and identification card were taken to the captain, Joseph Groff, who noticed the name didn't match.
Noibi then slept for most of the flight, said Patricia Condon, a spokeswoman for Virgin America.
The crew kept him under surveillance, "but at no time felt there was any threat to the security of the flight," Condon said.
Virgin America is cooperating with the FBI to determine how Noibi passed airport screening and boarded the flight, Condon said.
The person whose name was on the Virgin America ticket, identified only as "M.D." in the affidavit, told the FBI that he printed the pass at home, placed it in his back pocket and took a subway to the airport.
After arriving at JFK, the man noticed he didn't have the ticket and got a new boarding pass from an airline kiosk. M.D. told the FBI that he did not know Noibi.
It was unclear why Noibi was not arrested after the nonstop, overnight flight arrived at LAX on June 24.
However, Noibi was detained Wednesday when he tried to board Delta Flight 46 from LAX to Atlanta while using another expired boarding pass at the departure gate, Hogg wrote.
Noibi told authorities that he was cleared by security screeners Tuesday and spent the night inside Terminal 5. Noibi then went to the departure gate around 6 a.m. Wednesday and told a Delta employee that he missed his flight on Tuesday.
Even though he said he could go to the gate, the Delta employee "told Noibi no twice and Noibi kept trying to hand her the boarding pass," Hogg wrote.
Authorities then approached Noibi, who said he did not pay for the Virgin America ticket that he used from LAX to New York and that he didn't have any money.
Noibi also said that he was in Los Angeles to recruit people for his software business, but didn't know anyone locally.
Asked if he had any other boarding passes, Noibi reached for his back pocket and pulled out two tickets that didn't belong to him, according to the FBI affidavit. After searching his two bags, authorities found "over 10 boarding passes in various individuals' names," Hogg wrote.
Noibi also told authorities that he was going back to Nigeria on July 7, then returning to the United States on Sept. 9 with a ticket he already purchased through Virgin Atlantic.
The Transportation Security Administration did not say whether passenger screening would be intensified or if tickets will be more closely scrutinized during the Fourth of July holiday weekend. Federal authorities have previously said that Independence Day was a potential terrorist target date after al-Qaida leader Osama bin-Laden was killed.
"Every passenger that passes through security checkpoints is subject to many layers of security including thorough physical screening at the checkpoint," TSA spokesman Nico Melendez said in a written statement.
"TSA's review of this matter indicates that the passenger went through screening," Melendez said. "It is important to note that this passenger was subject to the same physical screening at the checkpoint as other passengers." |
