close

Fugitive guilty of nearly $10M in bogus travel purchases

1 min read
article image -

PITTSBURGH (AP) – A man who escaped to Mexico to avoid sentencing in a 1996 credit card case in New York has pleaded guilty before a federal judge in Pittsburgh of making nearly $10 million in fraudulent credit card purchases, most of them international airline tickets, while on the lam.

Forty-eight-year-old Nicolas Frank Sucich likely faces more than four years in federal prison under a plea agreement struck Tuesday to charges of wire and access device fraud. He’ll return for sentencing Jan. 5.

Federal prosecutors say Sucich set up a business called FCO Travels in Mexico. Using that business, he used a fraudulent Scotiabank MasterCard account to buy millions of dollars’ worth of airline tickets from a legitimate Pittsburgh-area travel agency, then re-sold the tickets for cash at discounted rates to travelers, among other schemes.

CUSTOMER LOGIN

If you have an account and are registered for online access, sign in with your email address and password below.

NEW CUSTOMERS/UNREGISTERED ACCOUNTS

Never been a subscriber and want to subscribe, click the Subscribe button below.

Starting at $3.75/week.

Subscribe Today