Man pretends to be a US Marshal to get cheap hotel stays

Fraudster told receptionist cash he’s paying with ‘was confiscated drug money’

The man impersonated a US Marshal (Getty Images)

A man has admitted to pretending to be a US Marshal in order to get cheap hotel rooms.

Anthony Taylor from Indiana pleaded guilty to impersonating a law enforcement officer in exchange for a plea deal, reports the Knoxville News Sentinel.

A court heard that Taylor had used the trick to claim thousands of dollars’ worth of discounts on stays at Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, where he had stayed at least 10 times in five years.

Flashing a badge to get the money off, Taylor would usually pay in cash, and even went so far as to tell the receptionist to wash her hands after handling the money as it “was confiscated drug money he had received as bonuses for ‘busts,’” according to court records.

Hotel staff eventually became suspicious, and when Taylor and his wife visited again in April 2019, there were two bona fide Marshals waiting for them in plain clothes.

They asked Taylor to step aside and questioned him about whether he had been impersonating a deputy US Marshal during previous stays at Pigeon Forge.

Taylor admitted to fraudulently claiming to be a law enforcement officer “to get the government discount.”

Sentencing has yet to be scheduled.

It’s not the first time a traveller has impersonated an authority figure in order to get privileges.

In November 2019, a man was held by police after attempting to impersonate a pilot at Delhi airport in India.

Mr Rajan Mahbubani tried to board an AirAsia flight while pretending to be a Lufthansa pilot in order to receive preferential treatment.

However, he was apprehended before he could get on the I5-579 service to Kolkata.

India’s Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) discovered the impostor after AirAsia called the Lufthansa team to confirm the man’s identity.

Wearing a Lufthansa uniform, with a fake ID card he’d reportedly obtained in Bangkok, Mahbubani claimed to have successfully made the journey between Delhi and Kolkata more than 15 times in the previous six months using the same subterfuge, reported the Times of India.