German police are investigating a report from Lufthansa, parent company of Germanwings, claiming that a woman tried to scam free tickets from the airline by claiming to be the cousin of a teacher killed in the Flight 9525 crash.
The airline described this as a “regrettable isolated case” of a fraudster seeking to take advantage of Lufthansa’s offer of free air travel to relatives of the 150 people killed in the crash. With so many genuine relatives of those unfortunate souls in play, it could be taken as an optimistic development that only one person has thus far sought benefits by pretending to be related to a crash victim.
The UK Mirror reports allegations that the woman “pretended to be the cousin of a one of the teachers from Joseph-König High School in Haltern, Germany — who lost 16 students and two teachers in the disaster.”
Lufthansa reported the woman to the police when they suspected a deception. “A police spokesman confirmed the woman will be questioned by officers,” the Mirror writes.
The UK Daily Mail says the suspected scammer was looking for free travel to the south of France, and actually succeeded in flying to the region — twice — before she was reported to the authorities.