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FBI
Taken for a Ride
Travel Agent Scammed Marching Bands Out of Trips
05/29/15
The trip to Hawaii for 270 high school band members and their
chaperones was supposed to be the crescendo of months of performances,
fundraisers, and saving to book the arrangements. But the music stopped
when the band’s travel agent admitted he’d duped them to the tune of
more than $272,000.
In August 2011, a high school band in Arkansas contracted with
Utah-based travel agent Calliope R. Saaga to arrange the
once-in-a-lifetime trip. The school wired the funds in multiple
installments, but rather than booking the band’s Hawaii excursion,
Saaga spent the money himself—on his own trips to Disneyland, Samoa,
and Las Vegas—all the while offering assurances the band’s trip was on
schedule. It wasn’t until Saaga stopped answering calls after the last
payment in February 2012 that school officials got suspicious. Soon
after, just months before their scheduled departure, Saaga admitted
he’d lost all their money.
“I made some terrible decisions with the money,” Saaga said in a 2012
e-mail to the band’s assistant director, who had booked two trips
previously with Saaga so was shocked by the turn of events.
“They thought they had someone they could trust,” said Special Agent
Tim Akins of the FBI’s Little Rock Division, which opened a wire fraud
case against Saaga. “Now all of a sudden they don’t have money to go
anymore.”
It got worse. During Akins’ investigation, he learned that the FBI’s
Kansas City Division had opened its own case on Saaga after a Missouri
high school said the travel agent had bilked its band boosters out of
more than $360,000 for a Hawaii trip. The Bureau’s Springfield
(Missouri) Division was also looking into Saaga. Then emerged still
another scheme by Saaga to cheat an Arkansas school district. Forensic
accounting in the Kansas City case showed Saaga spent at least 47 days
gambling in Las Vegas when he should have been booking the schools’
outings.
“Saaga is a thief who stole from hard-working citizens and their
children,” said FBI Little Rock Special Agent in Charge David T. Resch.
During the course of the investigation, Saaga fled to Samoa, where he
is from. In his e-mail admission to the band director, he said he was
trying to sell his assets there to repay the group. “It will be a slow
process so I beg of your patience,” he wrote.
Parents who had been duped hoped Saaga would face justice and expressed
frustration on social media. In a May 2012 message on a Samoa news
outlet’s Facebook page, the mother of a band member said families had
worked hard to fund their summer trip. “Some of the kids took on part
time jobs to pay for this trip,” the mother said, “others even borrowed
money from the bank.”
Saaga ultimately returned to the U.S. to face multiple wire fraud and
money laundering charges for schemes that resulted in more than
$700,000 in losses. He was indicted in May 2014. Among his scams:
Stealing $360,000 from Willard High School Band
Boosters (Springfield, Missouri), forcing the cancellation of a trip to
Hawaii for more than 300 students and chaperones.
Stealing $272,500 from Southside High School (Fort
Smith, Arkansas), forcing the cancellation of a Hawaii trip for 270
marching bands students and their families.
Stealing $149,000 from a school district in West
Memphis, Arkansas.
Saaga was sentenced March 12 to five years in federal prison in the
Willard High school case. On March 31, he was sentenced to 63 months
for swindling Southside High School’s band. The sentences are to run
concurrently. He was also ordered to pay $780,000 in restitution.
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