Florida Man! Do your antics know no bounds? Fresh from ramming into a garbage truck and crashing through a BMW showroom, now Florida Man is accused of raising millions in capital to buy Boeing 737s, then pocketing it for himself. The Floridian in question this time around is Joshua Wander, an investor in budget airlines Flair and Bonza. He told his lenders that he was going to buy 134 of the 737 MAX model, but he only ended up getting 38. The money that would have been spent for the others somehow — who can say? — ended up in his personal bank account and that of his business partner. Wander calls this “a business dispute.” Prosecutors calls it “wire fraud.”
As the Seattle Times reports, Wander’s company, 777 Partners (no relation to the Boeing 777), allegedly raised a grand total of $500 million by nefarious means. That number may sound large, but it makes more sense when you realize that Wander was using the very cutting edge in manipulative technology (literally Microsoft Paint). With altered documents declaring assets that didn’t actually exist, Wander borrowed money against collateral that wasn’t there. Obviously, if true, the scheme stiffs the lenders. But it would also stiff Boeing, who would have to scratch a bunch of future orders it thought it had off its books.
Everybody loses
You’ll be amazed to learn that the budget airlines that Wander invested in aren’t doing well. “Bonza Airlines went bankrupt last year… leaving passengers stranded,” the Seattle Times says, which sounds more like an emergency shutdown of operations than a managed decline. Flair, while still technically alive, is mired in lawsuits over repossessed planes. Oh, and Wander’s company 777 Partners is now bankrupt, too.
None of this necessarily has anything to do with Boeing; Wander could just as easily have bought (or, not bought) from Airbus. But it sure doesn’t help the American planemaker try to recover from a terrible year when a bunch of its orders simply evaporate. Of course, given the company has fully 5,000 planes on backorder, Boeing is sold out through 2032 anyway. More than enough time to pick up some new sales. It had just better check those orders for the telltale scent of Microsoft Paint.
