Ahmed Olasunkanmi Salau
An Athens man who airports across the country had been warned about because of his alleged suspicious activities in restricted areas was arrested Thursday for acting suspiciously earlier in the week at Athens Ben Epps Airport, Athens-Clarke County police said.
Ahmed Olasunkanmi Salau, 33, of Highland Park Drive, had been monitored by federal authorities since October 2016, when he was found in Houston on a commercial flight using a fake name and date of birth, and a fraudulent photo ID, according to a Transportation Safety Administration - Be On the Look Out (BOLO).
The TSA issued the BOLO to airports asking that they call them and local law local law enforcement if they suspected Salau of engaging in suspicious or fraudulent activity.
Salau has been a resident of Athens since at least 2008, when he was convicted in two State Court cases, one for criminal trespass and the other for giving a false name to police and illegally operating a moped, according to court records.
The nationwide lookout was issued after Salau’s July arrest at the Ronald Reagan National Airport after he called a service desk to claim he had an aircraft on the premises, according to the TSA BOLO. There were other incidents at Washington Dulles International Airport that same month, where he repeatedly tried to board a private NetJet aircraft without “associated paperwork,” according to the TSA.
The BOLO was updated in October after Salau allegedly tried to “gain unauthorized access to aircraft and airport facilities” about 20 times at airports across the country.
In an alleged September incident, Salau posed as a Delta Air Lines pilot at an airport in Maryland, where he reportedly approached a flight instructor and made flight time inquiries, according to the TSA.
Suspicious incidents involving Salau have primarily occurred at fixed based operators, or FBOs, according to the TSA.
An FBO is a private company that is granted the right by an airport to operate there to provide such aeronautical services as fueling, aircraft rental and maintenance, and flight instruction.
Salau “has a working knowledge of FBO operations and initially sounds credible,” the TSA BOLO stated. “If encountered, FBOs should ensure he is prevented from entering restricted areas.”
In the Athens incident, police responded to Athens Ben Epps Airport on a report of a suspicious person. There, they found that Salau had been speaking with a Seaport Airlines pilot “and trying to learn how to navigate and flight patterns,” according to an Athens-Clarke County police report.
When asked if he had identification, the man said he didn’t, but then told police he had a driver’s license number, the police report noted.
Airport staff told police they wanted Salau barred from the airport, but the man refused to sign the barring paperwork and left, police said.
“Due to Salau obviously having a long record of trespassing on government property, he was in a place for no legal reason, other than to harass or gain information for some illegal cause, I will be seeking a warrant for loitering and prowling,” an officer wrote in the police report.
A Magistrate Court judge signed the warrant on Thursday and Salau was arrested on the warrant later in the day by Gwinnett County authorities, who responded to a complaint that Salau was acting suspiciously at the Gwinnett County Airport, according to Epifanio Rodriguez, spokesman for the Athens-Clarke-County Police Department.
Salau was booked into the Clarke County Jail Thursday evening, according to the jail’s website.
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