Man arrested over phony airline tickets

Hongkou district police have arrested a man for selling 20,000 yuan ($3,268) worth of phony airline tickets to people he met on the Internet, local media reported Wednesday.

The suspect, who operated under the screen name China Eastern Airline Tickets, met his victims online and offered to sell them airline tickets at a steep discount, according to a report in the Xinmin Evening News. The prices were usually much cheaper than what the victims could find elsewhere.

In one case, a woman surnamed Zhang sought to buy three round-trip tickets from Shanghai to Chengdu, Sichuan Province, from the suspect. She asked to meet him in person on July 24 so she could inspect the tickets.

She did not find anything wrong with them and handed over 6,700 yuan. When she went to the airport on August 13, airline staff told her the tickets were fakes.

Zhang tried calling the suspect from the airport, but he did not answer. She later reported him to police.

The suspect's tickets looked nearly identical to real airline tickets, so it was difficult for his victims to tell they were counterfeit, said a press officer from the Hongkou District Public Security Bureau.

Police searched for the suspect's screen name online and managed to trace his physical location.

Officers arrested him on August 16 while he was meeting with another victim on Huayuan Road. He was charged with fraud.