A Southwest Airlines employee has been charged by police in St. Louis in connection with the alleged theft of around $79,000 in travel vouchers, which the airline allows staffers to gift to passengers who have faced disruption of other common travel woes while traveling with Southwest.
Customer service agent Brooklyn Jones is alleged to have stolen hundreds of the travel vouchers, which are officially called Southwest Luv Vouchers, or SLVs, while working out of St. Louis Lambert International Airport.
Jones was arrested by airport police following a tipoff by Southwest’s internal security team, which started an investigation based on suspicions about what its employee was up to.
Investigators from Southwest allegedly discovered that Jones had been printing the vouchers for his own use by using the names and details of passengers he had served at the airport.
After presenting Jones with the evidence it had already gathered, he reportedly confessed to stealing the travel vouchers in a written statement that has now been handed over to local prosecutors.
After confessing to the crime, Jones then led Southwest’s security team to his locker at the airport, where they discovered a stockpile of 119 vouchers worth $36,300.
Southwest then called in the police who placed Jones under arrest on suspicion of theft. In a police interview, Jones claimed that he believed he was the only employee in St. Louis who was stealing the Luv vouchers, although the crime is far from unique.
Although Jones appears to claim that the stolen vouchers were only for his own personal use, Southwest has previously had issues with airport customer service reps stealing the vouchers in order to sell them to organized criminal gangs.
Last June, a Chicago-based Southwest airport employee was charged with 12 counts of wire fraud after she allegedly issued $1.87 million worth of travel vouchers to fake passengers.
Dajuan Martin, 36, had allegedly conspired with another Southwest employee to issue travel vouchers ranging from $200 to $500 in value. Over five years, Martin became so prolific that she allegedly issued nearly $2 million in fraudulent travel vouchers.
Southwest has confirmed that Jones is no longer working for the airline.
