One guy decided it was too risky to fly home to Los Angeles during a pandemic, so he opted to shelter in place instead…
…except he sheltered in Chicago O’Hare International Airport for a whopping three whole months.
And you won’t believe how this guy managed to survive and elude clueless authorities.
36-year-old Aditya Singh wasted no time getting comfortable in his new “home.”
In order to get around without creating suspicion, he stole a badge from an airport employee and spent most of his time camping out in a secure location of the airport.
And with no credit card to buy food, he managed to live off the scraps other travelers were generous enough to give him.
Yeah, even in one of America’s rudest cities, this guy was lucky enough to find hospitable travelers willing to feed him for three months.
In his alternate reality, he actually felt safer living in an airport – among throngs of people passing through each week – rather than just hopping on a quick flight home to LA.
Clearly, it makes absolutely no sense.
But even stranger, how in the world did this guy not get busted!?
What about Big Brother’s invasive cameras used to spy on innocent travelers?
Or all the “effective” TSA agents hired to keep travelers “safe”?
I mean – come on! I can’t even take a bottle of water through security without it being assumed I’m a potential terrorist…
…but this guy can actually live in an airport for three months completely unnoticed?!
Of course, in an effort to save face, airport officials tried to claim that Singh wasn’t really a security risk.
Fortunately, the judge did not share that opinion.
ABC News reported:
“So if I understand you correctly,” Cook County Judge Susana Ortiz was reported saying in court Sunday, “you’re telling me that an unauthorized, non-employee individual was allegedly living within a secure part of the O’Hare airport terminal from Oct. 19, 2020, to Jan. 16, 2021, and was not detected? I want to understand you correctly.”
Exactly.
And the only reason this guy was finally busted was because two United Airline employees asked to see his credentials – and when Singh showed them the stolen ID, they had enough sense to call the proper authorities.
The judge agreed he was a danger to the community, and as a condition of his bail, is not allowed to enter Chicago O’Hare.
But the fact that airport security didn’t realize this guy was living there for an entire three months is deeply troubling.
What if he’d been a deranged terrorist plotting harm against the United States?
We’d be in a world of trouble.
The Chicago Tribune reported:
“The court finds these facts and circumstances quite shocking for the alleged period of time that this occurred,” the judge said. “Being in a secured part of the airport under a fake ID badge allegedly, based upon the need for airports to be absolutely secure so that people feel safe to travel, I do find those alleged actions do make him a danger to the community.”
Hopefully airport security has finally realized they should be more concerned with preventing this situation from ever happening again instead of confiscating grandma’s tube of Fixodent.
(h/t Proud American Traveler)