Travel Agency Slaying, 2 Robberies May Be Linked to Ticket Scam

Robberies in the last week at two San Fernando Valley travel agencies--including one in which an owner was fatally shot--are believed to be part of a series of similar robberies in which the thieves have taken blank airline tickets worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, Los Angeles police said Tuesday.

Detectives said robbers armed with handguns have taken cash and tickets from at least 20 travel agencies throughout Los Angeles County since the beginning of the year, but no shots had been fired until Friday, when the owner of a Van Nuys agency was shot during an afternoon robbery.

Police said Hernan Vacha was shot once in the upper body during the robbery at Excelsior Travel & Tours in the 14400 block of Victory Boulevard, about two blocks from the Van Nuys police station. Vacha, 46, died Saturday night at Valley Medical Center in Van Nuys.

No Arrests

No arrests had been made in the slaying or the robberies. The latest was committed by three armed men who took an undisclosed amount of cash and blank tickets Monday from Ampavera Tours & Travel in the 18600 block of Sherman Way in Canoga Park.

The Valley robberies featured a new level of violence in the robberies and enlarged the area in which businesses have been victimized, police said. In the past, robberies have occurred as far south as Inglewood and as far east as El Monte. Although some occurred as far north as Van Nuys, most took place south of the Valley. The Canoga Park robbery was the first in the West Valley.

“This is a new thing and it is escalating,” Detective Larry Hedwall said. “We have had numerous robberies all over the county since the end of last year.”

In most cases, two or three armed robbers entered the businesses during daytime hours and took cash and tickets after threatening employees. Police said they have received several different descriptions from victims, leading them to believe that different but possibly linked groups of robbers are involved.

Selling Methods

The links between the robbers may be in the methods or individuals used to sell the blank tickets, detectives said.

Forgery Detective Bob Hill said stolen tickets are routinely sold to unsuspecting travelers through newspaper ads or in bulk quantities to networks that arrange travel for illegal aliens who have been smuggled into Southern California and are heading east. He said tickets stolen from Los Angeles agencies have also been traced to Europe where they were distributed.

Hill said that thieves use sophisticated methods, including computer printers, stolen airline stamps and knowledge of airline ticket coding, to fill out the blank airline tickets for specific flights--often expensive routes that bring more profit to the thieves. Phony reservations are then made with the airlines to make sure that seats are open on the flights.

Those who travel on the tickets often do not know that they have been stolen, he said, although some of those who buy tickets through classified ads are told that they are legitimate cut-rate tickets--which airlines specify cannot be resold--and so the buyer must fly under the identity of the “original purchaser.”

Computer Checks

Users of the tickets usually are not stopped at airports unless airline employees take the time to run computer checks on the serial numbers of their tickets, Hill said. Rarely are the actual thieves arrested. The airlines--or passengers notified at the last moment that their tickets are invalid--suffer the loss, he said.

Hill said that for years thieves have used various ruses to steal small amounts of blank tickets from travel agencies, but the rash of armed robberies this year is a disturbing and dangerous new trend that has largely grown out of the lucrative market for the tickets.

He said that the travel agencies robbed this year usually had 100 to 250 blank tickets stolen and that those recovered after use indicate the thieves profit an average of $1,000 from each one.

“The losses can be staggering,” he said. “The airlines could lose $100,000 in each robbery.”