Man threatened to blow up planes in Las Vegas over fee, report says

Las Vegas police arrested a Northern Nevada man accused of threatening to shoot people and blow up planes at McCarran International Airport when an airline tried to charge him for a carry-on bag, according to an arrest report.

Andrew Greco, 52, was arrested Friday and booked on charges of communicating a bomb threat and making a threat in an act of terrorism, according to court records.

Greco began yelling at Frontier Airlines ticket counter personnel Thursday after they told him that bringing his carry-on bag aboard would cost $55, according to the Metropolitan Police Department arrest report.

After allegedly throwing his credit card and license at the ticket counter employees, Greco left the airport because the employees called the police.

Investigators believe Greco returned to his room at South Point, where he called Frontier customer service at least 11 times throughout the night. During the calls, Greco was threatening that he “will kill people in Las Vegas or blow up an aircraft,” police said.

On one call, Greco said he had strapped C4 plastic explosive to planes at McCarran, and on another he said he “would not have a problem killing people in Las Vegas” if he didn’t get transferred to a manager.

Police said Greco used racial slurs when speaking with employees of the call center, which is based in the Philippines, and told police he “did not want to keep being transferred to someone who has an accent.”

“He stated he wanted to scare them into a response,” officers wrote in the report.

Greco had flown to Las Vegas from Reno on April 19. He is being held in Clark County Detention Center on $5,000 bail. A court hearing in the case is scheduled for May 11.

Contact Sabrina Schnur at sschnur@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0278. Follow @sabrina_schnur on Twitter.