Hellenic Police has dismantled a gang that was making fake diplomas for airplane pilots by giving them the answers to the theoretical exams through an intercom system. As it follows from the transmittal revealed by protothema.gr the three members of the gang gave stylistic instructions to their customers, used special vocabulary and charged up to 25,000 euros to completely avoid the examinations of candidate pilots.
Three Greeks aged 70, 43 and 69, who are believed to be members of the criminal organisation, have been arrested in the case, as well as two candidate pilots aged 28 and 42. The case file also includes the names of three other persons involved in the case, aged 48, 38 and 34.
Against them, as well as against 16 other persons – prospective aircraft pilots, a case was filed for – in some cases – criminal organisation – gang, false certification, perpetration, conspiracy and occupation, as well as attempted perpetration of false certification in conspiracy.
According to the ELAS, the candidates for the professional pilot’s licence were mainly students of schools who were either unable to obtain the licence after unsuccessful attempts or did not want to study the theoretical material of the courses examined.
The ring collected an average of EUR 7 800 from each of the candidates it helped. Between January and May alone, five pilot’s licences were issued in this way, while 10 other people had been issued with pilot’s licences in the previous period.
The modus operandi
As follows from the transmittal brought to the public by protothema.gr, pilots “approached the 70-year-old and the 43-year-old either through third persons who had previously managed to obtain the license in question in the same irregular way (spreading rumors by word of mouth) or through persons who were in the aviation industry as instructors of candidate pilots-pilots. When the candidates contacted the 70-year-old, the latter informed them of the methodology he would follow, i.e. that he would guide them by means of audiovisual devices so that they would choose the right answers. It is noted that the gang preferred the examinations conducted by Austro Control (the Austrian State Aviation Authority, which is EASA certified) because the questions were published on an online platform and therefore the gang members were able to identify the correct answers. He also informed them of another irregular way of obtaining an aircraft pilot’s licence which cost EUR 25,000, with the advantage, however, that it would not matter whether the candidate answered the questions correctly, since in some unknown way to us, success was guaranteed.
The EUR 25 000 fee
Especially for the “solution” of 25,000 euros, the police officers who investigated the case say that “in this case the theoretical examination of the courses took place in Amman, Jordan, while the 43-year-old was the link with the examination centre”.
The gang also had a solution for the case where the candidate in question was enrolled in a foreign pilot school as he was ‘issued with a certificate of study from the pilot school of the 69 year old man based in Thessaloniki, which falsely stated that he had been taught the theoretical part of the course in order to take part in the examinations organised by Austro Control. In this way, the members of the gang succeeded in getting foreign candidates residing abroad to sit the examinations at the Austro Control examination centre in Greece without their activities being detected.
The tests, the instructions and the special vocabulary
The gang even carried out trial “tests” to make sure its members were sure that their system was working, even giving stylistic instructions to its clients.
As stated in the transmittal, “a few days before the theoretical examinations, the 70-year-old was conducting tests with the candidates to ascertain the proper functioning of the equipment while urging them to wear a long-sleeved blouse or shirt so that the audio-visual devices in question would be concealed and undetectable”.
However, special gestures were also made on the day of the examination with the 70-year-old man “directing the examinee to stand in the right place so that through the camera he brought he could achieve a precise visual contact with the screen on which the questions were projected. A one-to-one conversation then followed until the end of the examination with the 70-year-old shouting out the correct answers to the examinee’.
The illegal communication also had a special “vocabulary” as stated in the transmittal: “a) telecoil to describe the irregular aid b) bobblehead to describe the lice-type earpiece c) machines or things to describe the audio-visual devices and d) black to describe the examining candidate third-country nationality pilot operators.
The moment of arrest
The transmittal also describes the moment when the three members of the gang and the two pilot candidates were arrested in the act: ‘the candidates had pierced the left sleeve of their shirts and had fitted a special micro-camera which they had taped to the inside of their sleeves in order to broadcast live the questions being examined by computer. They also both carried ‘lice’ type headphones inside their ears in order to receive the answers to the questions. Each of them had the lice earpiece connected to a mobile phone while the microcamera was connected to another mobile phone from which it received data via pairing’.
