His methods are a commercial secret

Gennady Podolsky has been touted as an extraordinary travel agent, known for getting his clients from point A to point B with more speed and ingenuity than your average operator.

A 2016 Wired Profile describes a man who used a "bunch of tricks" to help his clients with a whole host of problems: Nigerian chess players on a logistically difficult journey to Norway and a traveler who was to leave Azerbaijan, stat. In addition to his travel knowledge, he would have used proxies, private browsers and other digital methods to find the lowest possible rates for his clients.

"The rest of his methods are trade secrets," writes Zoe Mendelson of Wired. In explaining these methods, "he smiles innocently and shrugs." We have to be very creative, "he told Wired.

Federal prosecutors claim that one of these creative methods was to play fraudulently with the Delta SkyBonus miles program to collect millions of points and book tickets on behalf of his firm's clients. According to the prosecutor, it is mainly people of Russian origin and Eastern Europe who lived abroad.

"Podolsky has used his knowledge of the travel industry to take advantage of his travel agency clients," said US lawyer Byung Pak in a statement. "Thanks to his access, he would have benefited from the Delta Airlines loyalty program, illegally collecting millions of SkyBonus points worth more than $ 1.75 million."

On Thursday, the owner of Chicago-based Vega International Travel Services was sued in Atlanta on charges of wire fraud after being indicted by a grand jury. He pleaded not guilty and will be allowed to wait for his trial at his home in Chicago, said American lawyer John Ghose.

Delta's SkyBonus program allows companies to collect points when their employees travel with the airline, which can be spent on flights and other airline benefits. But there is an important caveat: the traveler must actually be an employee of the company to be eligible. Prosecutors said Podolsky opened a SkyBonus account via a Fertility Treatment Center belonging to a family member of Vega International Travel's president, and then booked tickets for its customers using this account and fraudulently transferred them to as employees of the fertility treatment company.

Podolsky allegedly perpetrated the fraud between March 2014 and April 1995 and reportedly accumulated and exchanged more than 42 million SkyBonus points, prosecutors said.

In a statement, Podolsky's lawyers denied that his actions were fraudulent or that Delta had suffered financial losses.

"Gennady Podolsky is a respected and highly qualified travel advisor who has served a loyal clientele for many years," said Seth Kirschenbaum and Nicholas Lotito of Davis, Zipperman, Kirschenbaum and Lotito, LLP.

Podolsky's conduct "was not fraudulent," they said. "Indeed, while the government claims that Delta is a victim, the evidence presented at trial will show that Delta has actually generated millions of dollars in profits through its relationship with Mr. Podolsky." Mr. Podolsky would have put his customers at a disadvantage somewhat unfounded. "

In a statement, Delta Air Lines said: "We are pleased to see any kind of fraud charged and continue to work with the FBI and the district attorney's office to ensure that this case is continued in full scope" .

A representative from Vega International Travel did not immediately return requests for comments.

Podolsky is originally from Kiev, Ukraine, and has dual Ukrainian and American citizenship. He arrived in the United States at the age of 17 to attend Swarthmore College and opened his first travel agency a year later in 1993, Wired reported.

(With the exception of the title, this story was not changed by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

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