Ex-Air India employee held for hacking frequent flyer member accounts

A former Air India employee has been arrested for allegedly hacking Air India’s frequent flyer member accounts, the police said on Sunday.  The police said the accused, Anitesh Giri Goswami, a former Load and Trim officer with the Air India in Jodhpur airport, was arrested from Rajasthan based on a complaint that some people allegedly sold Air India tickets by redemption of miles of genuine Flying Returns Members after hacking the Frequent Flyer member accounts. 

“It was found that the accused is dynamic and frequently changed his location. It has also been found that Jodhpur is the hub of this racket and Goswami is its mastermind. On the basis of electronic surveillance and information, Goswami was nabbed from an apartment in Jaipur,” said Arun Kampani, Additional Commissioner of Police, Economic Offence Wing (EOW).

The police have recovered one laptop, several mobile phones and other incriminating documents from Goswami’s possession.  According to the police, Goswami is an IT expert with a degree in BCA. He had earlier worked with the Kingfisher Airlines, besides Air India.

The police said Goswami was well-versed with the online ticket-booking system and functioning of intranet and Internet-based systems of Air India. The police said he first understood the functioning of the ticketing system and the points or miles system of the airlines and then hacked the Loyalty Plus programme website of Air India. After gaining access to it, the accused allegedly obtained admin user rights.

“Using the admin rights in the internal Loyalty Plus system of Air India, he upgraded several other user IDs. Through these IDs, he verified hundreds of dormant accounts of Frequent Flyer members by uploading fraudulently prepared KYC documents,” said Kampani. He added that the accused then used these membership accounts and the Frequent Flyer miles or points accumulated in these accounts for booking airline tickets. The officer said these tickets were then sold to various travel or ticketing agents based in cities such as Pune, Delhi, Jaipur, Mumbai. Further investigation is underway, the officer said.