We often think about airports as being fortresses of security, but at the O’Hare International Airport in Chicago, a man managed to live inside for three months without being detected.
According toWGNTV, prosecutors say that 36-year-old Aditya Singh is being charged with criminal trespass to an airport restricted area. He is also being charged with misdemeanor theft. He said he was afraid to fly home to California due to the pandemic.
The Chicago Tribune said that he flew from Los Angeles to O’Hare on October 19 and lived in the airport security zone since that time. A passenger, Gary Vasquez, told reporters: “All I think of is that movie Terminal with Tom Hanks, he’s just chilling in the food court and everything.”
Cook County Judge Susana Ortiz could almost not believe what she was hearing when the prosecutor outlined the allegations.
According to the outlet, she said: “So if I understand you correctly, you’re telling me that an unauthorized, nonemployee 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.”
The man was asked to show his credentials to two United Airlines employees over the weekend. He then showed them a badge, but it was one that was reported missing in October from an operations manager. They then called 911 and Singh was taken into custody.