Scam Grounded Air Travelers Travel Agency Owner Charged In Sale Of Bogus Plane Tickets

Janeice Niebuhr tracked her son’s airline ticket all the way to Tokyo to make sure he got it.

Niebuhr was excited. Her family had pooled enough money to fly home the son she hadn’t seen in four years.

Curtis Niebuhr never made it.

Airport police detained the 23-year-old Navy E-4 when he tried to board the plane. They told him the tickets his mother had bought from a woman who owned Aladdin Travel in Post Falls were stolen.

“It was awful.

It was devastating,” Janeice Niebuhr said Thursday. “I cried for two weeks. I wanted to rip this woman apart.”

Aladdin Travel’s owner, Keva Wilhelm, 35, has since been charged with seven counts of grand theft by embezzlement. An arrest warrant signed by Magistrate Eugene Marano last month set her bail at $100,000.

Police in Boulder City, Nev., arrested Wilhelm on Monday. Kootenai County prosecutors are seeking a governor’s warrant to have Wilhelm returned to Idaho because she has refused to waive extradition.

Charges may be filed against one other person, whom Post Falls police have not identified.

Post Falls detective Sgt. Dave Beck said as many as 300 people bought airline tickets from Aladdin Travel in 1996. Wilhelm allegedly pocketed the money - more than $200,000 - instead of paying the carriers for the tickets, Beck said.

Most of the passengers traveled without any problems, but several were left stranded or detained around the world. Those people were forced to buy new tickets. Most were not reimbursed for the original tickets.

“It could have been a lot more,” Beck said.

The national Airlines Reporting Corp. began complaining to Beck in 1996 that Aladdin Travel had not paid several airlines for hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of tickets.

Those complaints prompted a yearlong investigation and the confiscation of 5,000 documents. Dozens of checks, airline tickets, invoices and ledger books are among the items detectives seized, Beck said.

Niebuhr told Beck her story a few days after he started investigating.

She and her husband had gone to Aladdin Travel on a friend’s recommendation. Wilhelm, whose family has known Niebuhr’s for nearly 20 years, insisted on making the reservations personally, Niebuhr said.

“She handwrote it,” Niebuhr said. “I thought it was kind of funny, but at the time I didn’t question it.”

Police at Tokyo’s Narita International Airport detained Curtis Niebuhr for 24 hours on Jan. 7, 1997. When he was freed, Curtis Niebuhr had to convince his Navy superiors he had been had.

“He didn’t even know. He had no idea,” his mother said. “He walked into this blind, and we did, too. It was a mess.”

Shen Keough was on his way back from Fiji when airline employees stopped him in Los Angeles. Keough also was told his ticket was not valid.

An airline employee in Fiji had told Keogh his ticket was “redflagged” but let him board the flight to Los Angeles anyway.

“Once he got to L.A. he was stuck there,” said Keough’s mother, Linda. “We had to pay from L.A. up.”

Linda Keough and her husband wired their son enough money for a new ticket and he was only delayed several hours.

Others were not as lucky, Beck said.

“They flew under trust that these airline tickets were paid for,” he said.

Detectives gathered evidence from five locations, including a storage unit and several banks. Thirteen large binders hold that evidence.

Police said Wilhelm, who also has used the last names Simonsen, Septer and Rothe, operated three travel agencies in Post Falls from 1990 through 1996.

Aladdin Travel opened in December 1994. Late during the summer of 1996, the names of the checking accounts were changed to Post Falls Travel, Beck said.

Police believe Wilhelm used the embezzled money to buy real estate and pay equestrian boarding fees and other personal expenses, Beck said. She also allegedly gave cash to other family members.

“I hope she gets what she deserves,” Niebuhr said.

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