Ticket Scam: Gymnasts’ Families Disappointed and Angry

A hundred people are in a state of distress after being left in the lurch. At least 112 individuals were supposed to take a flight on Wednesday night to go to Thailand.

However, they were unpleasantly surprised to find themselves without tickets and without any documents confirming their accommodation in order to board the plane tonight.

This incident involves parents, including their children, students from a gymnastics school who were supposed to leave Mauritius today to participate in the Bangkok Gymnastic Moose Games 2024 this weekend.

The coach acted as an intermediary for the payments, according to some parents. He claimed to have given the money to a certain Corinne Marie, who was supposed to take care of purchasing the tickets and booking the accommodation through an agency she claimed to work for.

The parents and chaperones began to panic over the weekend when they attempted once again to obtain their plane tickets from the coach.

Initially, the coach said that the agency was closed over the weekend and that everything was under control and that they would indeed travel.

Faced with the parents’ insistence on Monday, the coach informed them that bank transfers had been made to a travel agency through Corinne Marie and that she had indicated to him that a mistake had been made during the reservations.

Several people, including parents, met with her on Tuesday, March 26, accompanied by the coach.

She initially suggested that the tickets had been booked for France and that a change needed to be made before retrieving the correct tickets for Thailand.

The parents tried in vain to get concrete explanations from Corinne Marie.

On one hand, she explained that a money transfer had been made to the agency she worked for in South Africa, before stating that another person had made the transfer.

Tired of being led around in circles, those who had made payments to the coach for the trip turned to the Central CID at the Central Barracks today to file a complaint against the coach.

The coach, in turn, filed a complaint against Corinne Marie, who was arrested. An initial investigation into her revealed that she is already on probation in various similar cases.

Several complaints have been filed against Corinne Marie for issuing checks without sufficient funds, embezzlement, fraud, among others, since 2013. She has been arrested and released on bail before.

If this is indeed another case of fraud, the amount would exceed Rs 4.9 million. Victims claim to have lost up to Rs 80,000 and for some, up to Rs 150,000. The coach was interrogated by the CCID on Wednesday when he also presented his version of events.

“We’ve been crying since yesterday,” said Severine Sababady, former athlete and mother of one of the participants. “We only found out about this whole situation on Monday and when we checked, we discovered that there was no reservation for us,” explained a father.

“We were supposed to leave tonight, our children had already told their friends at school that they were going on a trip for a competition they had been training for a long time. What will we tell them? How will they react to their friends’ questions once they’re back at school?

Children who are already aware are crying non-stop. Finding out on the same day that they won’t be taking the plane tonight,” laments an impotent mother in the face of this situation.

“I made huge sacrifices and worked day and night to be able to offer my children their first plane trip. We thought we were doing the right thing by trusting the gymnastics group that answered our calls and reassured us about the trip. It’s outrageous!” recounts another father, his voice trembling.

Corinne Marie is spending the night in police custody and will appear in court tomorrow. To investigators on Wednesday, she once again explained that she had sent the money to someone in South Africa, without providing proof at this stage.

Source: Le Mauricien