Woman may have faked link to victim of Germanwings crash for free flights

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/09/woman-faked-link-germanwings-crash-victim-free-flights

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German police are looking into whether a woman falsely claimed to be a relative of a victim of last month’s Germanwings crash to get free flights to southern France.

Germanwings’ parent company, Lufthansa, organised special flights for victims’ relatives after the March 24 crash, which killed all 150 people on board.

The daily Halterner Zeitung, based in the western German town of Haltern that lost 16 high school students and two teachers, reported on Thursday that a woman flew to the region twice at Lufthansa’s expense after falsely claiming to be a cousin of one of the teachers.

Markus Tewes, a police spokesman in the town of Hoexter, said police were investigating possible fraud and that the woman would be questioned.

Lufthansa said it was looking into what appeared to be a “regrettable isolated case” but did not give any details.