From his home office in a tranquil English village just outside London, Jose Alejandro Zamora Yrala spent years selling 60,000 jet-engine components with fabricated paperwork that trickled into every corner of the global aviation industry.
Working with a Spanish graphic designer and an employee of TAP Air Portugal, the part-time DJ doctored PDF certificates on his computer and duped the safety-obsessed aviation industry over the space of five years, according to court documents. The scandal led to a worldwide hunt for the falsified components on the most widely flown Airbus and Boeing airliners and caused ?40 million ($54 million) in damages.
For Zamora Yrala, 38, the charade ended Monday at London’s Southwark Crown Court with a jail sentence of four years and eight months for fraudulent trading. The presiding judge, Simon Picken, called Zamora Yrala’s actions “reckless at best and utterly inexcusable.”
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