Investigation into agent’s fraud against BA
British Airways is assisting police investigating an alleged elaborate fraud by a travel agent in India.
Delhi police claim Damanpreet Singh Bedi, owner of Kipra Travels, had managed to siphon off more than 20 million mileage points from BA’s Avios loyalty programme.
"The Crime Branch received a complaint that mileage points of some of the fliers were redeemed illegally by unauthorised agencies in favour of other passengers, who were not entitled to avail the same," said Ravindra Yadav, Joint Commissioner of Police.
"Days into the investigation, we were led to IP addresses used for unauthorised access to create fake executive accounts."
Bedi is alleged to have redeemed Avios miles for flights and hotel stays and to have claimed reward flights which were sold to his customers.
Delhi police said the con was worth ‘millions of pounds’.
"Even if a false executive club account was created, a genuine passenger could redeem his points. This means that the genuine customers were not at loss but the loss was of British Airways as it led to duplicate use of points," said Yadav.
When his work office was raided by police they claim to have discovered 28 passports and several American Express credit cards.
A spokeswoman for BA confirmed it was assisting police in India with an investigation into alleged fraudulent activity.
"We would like to reassure customers than none of our systems have been illegally accessed and no Executive Club members have had their data accessed or frequent flyer points stolen," she added.
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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