Catch Me If You Can-Style Conman Arrested For Impersonating Pilot

A conman has been arrested at an airport in India after he posed as a Lufthansa pilot in full uniform in order to get upgraded seats and beat the traffic in airport queues.

Forty-eight-year-old Rajan Mahbubani, from Delhi, was discovered trying to skip the queue for boarding a flight at the Indira Gandhi Airport while 'impersonating' a plane captain.

Queuing at the airport can be a pain in the backside, but to get dressed up as a pilot to avoid that is another level above.

Anyway, Mr Mahbubani was apprehended by the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) at the gate, where he was trying to board Air Asia flight I5-579 to Kolkata on Monday afternoon.

The Chief Security Officer of Lufthansa told The Hindustan Times that they detained a 'suspected passenger in the getup of a captain of Lufthansa airlines'.

An officer of the CISF added: "The man was in possession of a fake ID card of Lufthansa Airlines captain, and he used it to get privilege at airports.

"The passenger disclosed that he used to shoot YouTube videos on aviation and had obtained the Lufthansa fake ID card in Bangkok."

After his arrest, Mr Mahbubani admitted that he really enjoys dressing up as a load of different professions, and he even showed them his TikTok account on which he displays his various guises.

Among them were more pictures, one of which even showed the man as an Army Colonel. Fair play, the guy really likes dressing up.

However, there are clearly defined rules about what you can and can't dress up as, and where you can and can't go in such a get-up.

Oh, and you definitely can't cut about carrying a false identity card that marks you out as the pilot of a commercial airline. Imagine the potential chaos that could cause.

He was also accused of using that card to get himself 'preferential treatment' such as seat upgrades and to gain access to crew boarding areas.

At least, that's according to Sanjay Bhatia, the Deputy Commissioner of Police at Delhi Airport.

Mr Bhatia continued: "During interrogation, Mahbubani said that he is a frequent traveller and used to impersonate as a pilot of international airlines to gain easy access during security clearance and have preferential treatment from security agencies and airlines"

If this all seems familiar to you, you may have seen Steven Spielberg's film Catch Me If You Can, which is based on the story of Frank Abagnale, a conman who accrued more than a million miles on 250 flights during the 1950s after getting his hands on a PanAm airlines uniform and forging a pilot's license.

Perhaps they'll make a second film out of this incident.

Then again, perhaps not.

Featured Image Credit: Twitter

Topics: World News, TV and Film, US Entertainment, Weird

Tom Wood

Tom Wood is a LADbible journalist and Twin Peaks enthusiast. Despite having a career in football cut short by a chronic lack of talent, he managed to obtain degrees from both the University of London and Salford. According to his French teacher, at the weekend he mostly likes to play football and go to the park with his brother. Contact Tom on [email protected]

@TPWagwim