"Catch me if you can"? Will do!

When I was a kid, I avidly read the book The Great Impostor, which chronicled the exploits of one Ferdinand Waldo Demara, a Massachusetts-born conman who, among other things, forged (fake) careers as a Trappist monk, Benedictine monk, engineer, teacher,  psychologist, prison warden, lawyer, and surgeon. He also founded a college that, miraculously, is still in existence. That many of his exploits involved Catholic institutions made the story all the more interesting to me. (The book formed the loose basis for a movie of the same name, with Demara played by Tony Curtis. I'm sure I saw it at some point, and may look it up one of these days.)

Fast forward to Catch Me If You Can,

a very enjoyable 2002 movie starring Leo DiCaprio as Frank Abagnale, conman extraordinaire. Like DeMara, Abagnale (supposedly) impersonated a doctor, lawyer, and airline pilot along his merry way. As an airline pilot - which is a little scarier a thought than being a lawyer, and a lot scarier a thought than being a doctor, but is REALLY SCARY, I don't think Abagnale ever actually flew a plane. He just deadheaded (cadged free flights), forged checks, and recruited (and physically examined) potential stewardesses - guess that's where being a fake doctor helped.

(Having found it difficult enough to fake my way through professions I was actually skilled at and/or educated for - like waitress and product marketer - the idea of making a career up out of whole cloth is fascinating to me.)

Frank Abagnale isn't the only one who pretended to be a pilot to fly for free. 

Federal prosecutors accused a Canadian man on [January 20, 2026] of doing just that, charging him with wire fraud for a scheme in which they say he pretended to be a pilot and a flight attendant to get hundreds of trips for free.

The man, Dallas Pokornik, used a false identification badge to defraud three airlines of travel benefits, according to an indictment filed in federal court in Hawaii. Mr. Pokornik, 33, had previously worked for a Toronto-based airline as a flight attendant between 2017 and 2019, court documents said, but not as a pilot. (Source: NY Times)

Impersonating a flight attendant for a free flight - which many airlines provide to colleagues at other airlines - is bad enough. Fraud, sure. Theft, absolutely. But pretty much no harm, no foul. And bad enough he scammed his way into free seats in the cabin. On some of his free flights - and there were many of them over the course of four years, on several different airlines - Pokornik, pretending to be a flyboy, asked for and was given a jump seat in the cockpit. Where, presumably, he could have been called on to assist if something happened to the pilot or copilot. Given that his in-flight experience was as a flight attendant, what was he going to do? Offer the other pilot a Biscoff cookie or a barf bag? 

The airlines Pokornik defrauded weren't named in the article, but "one [was] based in Honolulu, one in Chicago and one in Fort Worth." I'm a pretty good guesser, and I'm guessing Hawaiian Airlines, United, and American. I've never flown Hawaiian, but, yeah, I've been on United and American plenty of times. Wonder if Pokornik was ever in the seat next, or maybe even in the cockpit?

Pokornik is in line for a hefty fine and prison sentence. Wonder if it'll end up being worth the free flights he conned his way into?

Pokornik flew down the "catch me if you can" gauntlet, and apparently the airlines took him up on it. 

Anyway, he's grounded now.

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Image Source: Netflix