A jilted girlfriend bent on revenge called United Airlines shortly before her ex-lover tried to board an international flight and hinted he was a terrorist, the FBI said.
Lizet Sariol thought she placed the fake terror tip anonymously, but then she boasted about the hoax to her former flame, exposing her tracks.
Sariol, 45, was behind bars late Wednesday after she surrendered to authorities.
The Temple City resident called the United reservations line around 2 a.m. on Sept. 25 and told an airline representative there would “be an emergency” on a Las Vegas to Paris flight, according to a federal criminal complaint filed this week.
She spoke to 15-year call center vet Shan West, who sprang into action.
“I thought it was a bomb. I was real nervous,” West later told investigators.
He confirmed the woman never said the word “bomb,” but he said the caller implied it through all the “threat” comments she made.
“‘Bomb’ was never mentioned. That’s what I thought. When you get a call like that, that’s what you think. You don’t think it refers to a fight,” he told the FBI.
Sariol claimed she had received ominous texts from some “foreigners” she had met, specifically Adnen Mansouri and his traveling companion Salim Oumahdi, according to the complaint.
Both men are citizens of France.
LAX officials stopped Mansouri and Oumahdi later that same day at a US Airways ticket counter before they flew to Las Vegas on the first leg of their trip home.
Mansouri said he wasn’t surprised the FBI was waiting for him because Sariol had been “harassing” him, the complaint said.
He admitted a prior sexual relationship with Sariol and told investigators that he spurned her attentions when she made a late-night call to the Beverly Hills house where he was staying the night before.
He said Sariol cried in his presence and then sent angry messages after she left.
He said he believed Sariol was mad because he “un-friended” her on Facebook.
One missive sent hours before Mansouri’s departure sealed her fate.
“Really hope you all have a great flight,” Sariol wrote, according to the complaint. “Don’t even try to get on the plane (I) called the fbi Sucks to be all of you hope you all have good attorneys.”
She sent more threatening text messages to Oumahdi, the complaint said.
“Already called the airlines considered you all terrorists,” one message began.
“Hope you like jail,” read another.
Investigators interviewed Sariol at a coffee shop in early October. She claimed she simply “freaked out” when she was booted from the Beverly Hills house that night.
“I’m very sorry,” the scorned scammer told the FBI, according to the complaint.
Sariol is charged with providing false and misleading information by fabricating a terrorist threat. She was being held on $20,000 bond.
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