We should put people like this in charge of the TSA, just like digital crimes often result in government jobs. The guy has proven he knows more than most. Determine his connections and intentions, surveil him, and give the guy a career. He is smart enough to know all the ineffective BS and has the credentials to prove it.
Sergey Ochigava, who had Russian and Israeli identification, faces felony charges of being an aircraft stowaway
Would not be surprised if he was a spy.
Would not be surprised if he was a spy.
Nah, the article says he was wandering around the plane trying to steal food and chat with strangers. That’s a lot of interactions over the course of an eight-hour flight. A spy would surely keep a much lower profile than that… Or maybe that’s how he throws people off his trail!
So, a real life Russian version of Archer. That’s…kinda disturbing, not gonna lie.
зона опасности!
The Columbo of spies.
Actually… That’s just James Bond. Straight up telling people his name, purposely annoying the bad guy, because he already knows everything the first 10 seconds of looking at the villain.
Nah see they’ll be looking for the inconspicuous guy.
So, typically an employee of an intelligence agency has a diplomatic passport and is attached to an embassy or some such. It is considered generally unacceptable (at least in some countries) to have a cover as a journalist, but other private employment is allowed. Being an intelligence officer with a cover as part of an aid agency is generally not allowed, although that does happen, and results in things like vaccine refusals and the execution of medical personnel who are trying to eliminate diseases. I’m not going into specifics, but one of the places where that happened rhymes with “Wackystan.”
Anyway, the job of the intelligence officer is to recruit spies, like an admin assistant in some government agency. They generally don’t do the physical spying themselves, but they’ll use various approaches to get foreign nationals to send them files and such.
In any case, this person just seems like a cool con man. The absolute last thing someone involved in intelligence wants to do is attract attention (most of the time - some recent Russian operations in the US have been quite blatant), and this person was just having a great time.
This is cool and sounds believable. Do you have other insights?
For this, not really. This story just sounds more like a poor man’s Frank Abagnale than a super spy.
The absolute last thing most people involved in intelligence work want to be is “interesting.”
How many movies have you watched?
Iunno, at least seven.
The best spy would probably say something similar. “IDK.” He did take chocolate from the crew, so this maybe a surprise spy.
Hopefully this man wasn’t a German child, or else it’d be a kinder surprise spy.
A kinder surprise gives chocolate, does not take it. 🤪
Well if you expected it, it wouldn’t be much of a surprise would it?
So, there’s no such thing as a kinder surprise as it says on the package? 🥹
I’ve never been to Denmark nor do I know a lot about it. How strict is it enforcing airport security?
It’s got to be as good as anywhere else within Europe BC of shared borders.
He defenetly had help from the inside. I mean I can’t fly from Greece to Portugal without showing my id 2 times at least
I have been flying in the EU/schengen around 100 times in the last ten years. I have shown my ID very few times:
- a single random stop by a security guard in rome
- had to show ID once because of mess up with my name on boarding card to get a new one
- before I started using online pre-boarding
- during most intense covid lockdown
- when france effectively left the schengen agreement during the terrorist attacks
Outside of that, I have never shown my ID to anyone when flying in the EU/schengen. I’ve only been to Portugal once though, but no ID check, and never been to Greece.
Online pre-boarding and automatic boarding gates, you barely even have a member of staff looking at you, let alone ask you for ID.
Weird the gate staff always asks me for id. And when I’m doing my baggage check in too
I guess it depends heavily on the airport. But gate staff usually say “have your ID and boarding card ready”, but then its just that I scan the boarding card myself anyway. I usually do not check in luggage, if that is what you mean, and if I do, there are automatic dropoffs in a lot of places, and those that are serviced by staff just checks boarding card. Security gates only check boarding card. During covid lockdowns, some required that you upload your ID for online check-in, but I have not seen that since.
Right, but for nonEU trips you have to exit the Schengen zone, which comes with passport control, I have no idea how one can avoid that
Absolutely. That is really puzzling in this story.
I fly within the EU almost weekly, never had to show my ID. I think it’s very dependent on airline/country, and the individual standing at the gate, if they actually ask for it (though they of course can).
Same as everywhere else in the EU and with an extra layer of security on flights to the US like in many other countries.
Must have been the mistake of individuals and not the overall security.
Hm. Should I state the obvious? If the individuals are part of the system, then the whole system is compromised. Or as the saying goes “security is only as strong as the weakest link,” and someone put those “individual links” out there without enough vetting.
So, yes, it was the mistake of the overall security.
Security is there to make sure you’re not carrying illegal stuff, as long as that’s fine, the only time they maybe check the id is before giving you the boarding pass.
Looks like the guy didn’t have a boarding pass altogether, so not sure how he got into the plane.
There is usually a person or an automatic gate that checks your pass before allowing you through the plane. However that’s more like a ticket check and to make sure people don’t get on the wrong planes, it’s probably not super hard to get around.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Ochigava arrived at the Los Angeles international airport on 4 November.
He also asked for two meals while the flight attendants served passengers food, and he allegedly attempted to eat chocolate that belonged to the cabin crew.
In an interview with the FBI, Ochigava claimed he had a doctorate of philosophy in economics as well as marketing and had last worked in Russia.
Ochigava allegedly claimed he did not know how he got on the plane from Copenhagen, was not sure if he had a ticket, and did not remember how he got through airport security in Denmark without a boarding pass.
Ochigava remained in federal custody on Tuesday and was due in court on 26 December.
He could face up to five years in prison if convicted of being a stowaway on an aircraft, which the US’s federal code defines as a felony.
The original article contains 305 words, the summary contains 144 words. Saved 53%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
holy fuck, that was a wild trip
And people just walk in from Mexico.
You are right. We should expand worker programs and make it easier for them to legally cross. We need more labor in this country and we need it yesterday. The tax benefits wouldn’t hurt either.
