Brazilian Man Used Fake Identity to Work for United for 23 Years
A United Airlines flight attendant managed to have a long 23-year career with the company using a fake name. The flight attendant, William Ericson Ladd, was actually Ricardo Cesar Guedes. He’s a Brazilian man who had been using the identity of a dead American child for over two decades.
Ladd was born in 1974 and died in a car crash in 1979 in Washington state, a month before his fifth birthday, said the complaint filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of Texas in Houston. Ladd’s mother, Debra Lynn Hays, confirmed the boy’s birth and death to investigators from the Diplomatic Security Service (DSS) earlier this year.
DSS investigators say Ricardo Cesar Guedes was able to purchase a Lake Houston home, get married, buy a BMW vehicle, take out a loan and work as a United flight attendant while posing as the deceased Ladd.
Guedes assumed Ladd’s identity in 1998. He was able to successfully apply for a US passport using Ladd’s name. Since then, Guedes has renewed his passport six times, until it flagged in 2020. His real identity was finally confirmed when fingerprints he submitted for his Brazilian national identity document in the 1990s were compared to the set Guedes submitted for his background check for employment with United.
He has been charged with providing a false statement in a passport application, falsely impersonating a US citizen, and entering an airport secure area under false pretenses since his job allowed him to use the expedited “known crewmember” TSA lane and bypass most security checks.
United Airlines told to Business Insider that Guedes was no longer with the company. “United has a thorough verification process for new employees that complies with federal legal requirements,” the carrier said is the statement.
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