Trip to cell-ville
A Brighton Beach travel agent was indicted this week for allegedly bilking $26,000 from a dozen clients who paid top dollar for luxurious vacations, but ended up spending their special holidays fuming at home.
Prosecutors alleged that Peter Galin, who operated TravelCenterOnline.com from a small office at 229 Brighton Beach Avenue, would take payments ranging from $400 to $5,500 from his clients, but never booked the hotels and travel plans they had paid him for.
On at least on occasion, one of Galin’s victims showed up at the airport to begin her vacation and was told that she had no tickets waiting for her as Galin promised, officials alleged.
Galin would allegedly provide his clients with receipts so everyone believed that everything had been arranged.
His clients, who were mostly Russian immigrants, allegedly lost out on bus trips, cruises and flights to Mexico and Russia. Most of his clients paid in cash, officials alleged.
He’s charged with multiple counts of grand larceny. If convicted, he faces up to seven years in prison, officials said.
This is the second time in two months that the Kings County District Attorney took down a borough travel agent. In November, a Bay Ridge travel agent was indicted for bilking her mostly Middle-Eastern clientele, officials said.
