A Canadian man pled guilty last week to posing as a commercial pilot to get “hundreds” of free flights.
Dallas Pokornik was charged in the District of Hawai‘i last October with two counts of wire fraud after he allegedly used a false ID badge to present himself as a pilot for an unspecified Toronto airline.
According to a criminal indictment, Pokornik was employed by that Toronto airline as a flight attendant between 2017 and 2019, but was never a pilot. Nonetheless, Pokornik used his fake badge to deceive three airlines into giving him free tickets for years
Pokornik’s indictment does not include a list of all the free flights he received, although the U.S. Department of Justice reported that he received hundreds of free flights between at least January 2020 and October 2024.
Evidently by 2024, Pokornik’s plan fell through when one airline employee sent a picture of his fake badge to his former employer, which confirmed it to be false; among other things, the fake badge had an expiration date of 2027.
Following his indictment in 2025, Pokornik was arrested by the Panamanian government, and spent about one month in custody in Panama as he awaited extradition.
In the course of his scheme, Pokornik caused fraudulent transmissions to be sent across national borders — in this case, from Hawai‘i to Europe — which constitutes wire fraud, carrying a maximum possible sentence of 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.
“Travel security protocols help keep our citizens and visitors safe, and anyone who breaches those protocols should expect to be brought to justice,” U.S. Attorney Ken Sorenson said in a statement.
As part of his plea deal, Pokornik pled guilty to one count of wire fraud, with the other count to be dismissed. He agreed to pay back all losses he caused to the three airlines. However, the plea does not specify the exact sum of money to be repaid, although Pokornik did agree to pay one airline — described in court documents only as an airline based in Honolulu — $1,161 in restitution.
Pokornik was released in January on a $50,000 bond, but was ordered to be confined to a transitional housing facility in Honolulu, and surrendered his passport to the court. He will be formally sentenced on Dec. 8.
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