✈️ The VIP Seat Weekly
Your business aviation hot takes, served fresh.
November 4th, 2026 | Season 3 Episode 42 Companion
🎙️ $16 million in jet deal funds has been lost to fraud in the last year alone.
Five takeaways every broker, buyer, and seller should carry into their next closing, from the person who built a business around keeping wires out of the wrong hands.
Andrew Gratton spent years in aircraft management before co-founding Wingform as COO, a transaction platform for aircraft brokers, after a run of frauds between buyers and escrow companies in 2017 and 2018. Today he sees the problem from inside the digital back offices of the brokers who run their deals on his platform. His view is that the next wire fraud in this industry won't start at the closing table. It will start months earlier, quietly, in someone's inbox.
You can listen to the full conversation on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube. While you're there, leave us a 5 star review!
Sit back, buckle up, and let's take off.
Today's Newsletter is brought to you by AB Jets
When serious money is moving, you want to know exactly who you're dealing with. AB Jets just earned ARGUS Platinum Elite, a designation held by very few operators in the U.S.
Owner-operated since 1999, ARGUS Platinum since 2014. When the owners are the ones who built the operation from the ground up and are still running it today, the standard doesn't slip. Because it's their name on it.
New Challenger 3500s, a fleet of Lear 60's that are reliable, and no owner approval requirements. A fleet optimized to say "yes" to your trips. Thanks to AB Jets for sponsoring this season of The VIP Seat podcast!
Learn More At abjets.com
💡 Five Takeaways From Andrew Gratton
The following are takeaways and opinions from our guest and don't necessarily reflect the opinion of The VIP Seat. They're presented from his perspective.
1. Fraudsters don't attack the wire. They attack the inbox.
The money in a closing is usually well protected. Brokers run two-factor authentication, escrow providers have serious security, and the weak link tends to be a principal's personal Gmail account or an assistant's inbox. Bad actors get in and watch, sometimes for months. A typical deal can generate around 40 emails in the week before closing alone, and every one of them teaches the watcher how the parties write, who signs off on what, and when the money is due. Then, right at the end, they step in as one of the parties. The tells are small: a lookalike domain, a 1 swapped in for an l, a .co instead of a .com. The pressure is not small. We have to close now, the other side is about to walk, here are the new account details.
A common variation targets the chain of command. A message that appears to come from the CEO tells the CFO to push a payment immediately, and it gets done, because it came from above. Treat urgency itself as a red flag.
2. The losses are bigger than anyone admits
By Andrew's conservative estimate, roughly $16 million went to bad actors in aircraft transactions last year, and that only counts the events Wingform learns about while setting up brokers' back offices. The real number is likely higher, because the victims are the last people who want to talk about it. An escrow agent, a bank, or a sophisticated CFO rarely wants it known that millions went to the wrong account. Sometimes the cost lands on a broker who was already holding a deposit on trust and ends up covering it.
We have heard stories of a buyer flying overseas to collect an aircraft, only to be told by the actual owner that nothing was ever for sale. Silence keeps the whole industry from learning. Flight operations already has a model for this in just culture: report it, remove the stigma, and learn from it together. The transaction side of the business could use the same habit.
3. Set the rules of engagement before the deal gets hot
Think of it as the prenup before the honeymoon. Once there's an LOI on the table, tell every party how sensitive information will and won't move: wire details will never be shared over email or WhatsApp, and any message claiming otherwise won't be acted on. Many of these deals are cross-border, between people who may never meet in person, so the protocol has to do the work a handshake can't.
Most brokers already have checklists. The risk shows up in the last few days, when everyone is pushing to close and shortcuts start to look reasonable. Anomalies at that stage, like a buyer who drags their feet on KYC or suddenly wants to skip due diligence, are warning flags, not inconveniences. Encrypted messaging apps aren't a complete answer on their own, since anything can be screenshotted and forwarded. For larger shops, the practical fix is permissions: deciding who on the team can see, send, or approve what, deal by deal and tail number by tail number. That's the idea Wingform is built around, and by Andrew's count roughly 70% of its brokers use it as a private workspace while about 30% invite the counterparty or principal in with limited access. One more thing to retire: the phone call as a foolproof backstop. With voice cloning, it isn't anymore.
4. Know who is paying you, because that job is becoming yours
KYC (know your customer), KYB (know your business), and AML (anti-money laundering) checks used to feel like the escrow company's or the law firm's problem. The direction of travel, as he sees it, is toward the recipient of funds: if you're paid in connection with an aircraft transaction, expect to be asked to show your own due diligence on who that money came from. A quick screen can surface whether a counterparty is politically exposed, sanctioned, or tied to an aircraft caught up in a bankruptcy.
Leaning on your escrow agent's checks covers much of the overlap, and the established escrow firms are very good at this. But mistakes happen. Picture a fractional aircraft where one of four owners is a sanctioned person and nobody catches it until a central bank stops the payment. Choose your escrow company as carefully as your broker, and ask about its insurance. Some carry substantial coverage against this kind of fraud. Not all do, and an agent holding tens of millions in a deal needs coverage to match. This is general information, not legal advice, so talk to your own counsel about what applies to you.
5. AI raises the stakes on both sides
The same tools that help brokers work faster help fraudsters build profiles faster. What used to take weeks of careful note-taking on how someone writes and when they close can now be done by asking a model to read a thread and imitate the sender. Cloned voices and realistic video make the old just-call-them check less reliable. Business aviation is a tight-knit community where everyone knows who is at which show and roughly when deals close, which makes profiling easier still. So when your IT department nags you about your authenticator app, listen.
The other risk is self-inflicted. Paste an LOI into a free chatbot without stripping out the beneficial owner's address and you may have handed it to a platform whose terms you've never read.
Early adopters win, and brokers who don't adopt become a liability to their clients.
Framed that way, better transaction tools are less about convenience and more about downside protection. We suspect insurers will increasingly want to see them, too.
Today's Newsletter is also brought to you by REAL Jet
When you're moving serious money, you want to know there's a real person on the other end. REAL Jet does the research, treats operators as real partners, and even supplied the bus where this Beyond the Booth interview was recorded at NBAA-BACE. When you call REAL Jet, a real person picks up.
Relationships run the world, and our sponsor this week, REAL Jet, understands that. By creating a real relationship with a real person, something special happens. That's why they focus on creating unforgettable experiences with their sister company, REAL SLX, to help deepen those relationships and create meaningful impressions on customers and vendors alike.
When you fly with REAL Jet, you are not a transaction. You are part of a community that has been serving private flyers for more than twenty-five years.
Learn More At realjet.com
More from The VIP Seat: Our NBAA-BACE roundup | All interviews
🎧 This Week's Episode
Missed the podcast? Catch up on the full episode at the links below! We would LOVE if you would give us a 5 star review, and share with your friends!
Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Website
Jessie's Links:
Preston's Links:
Disclaimer: The VIP Seat Weekly is for informational and entertainment purposes only. This issue summarizes the opinions of a guest speaking in a personal capacity. Statements attributed to our guest, including estimates of fraud losses and descriptions of Wingform's platform and usage, reflect his views and his own analysis, and are not presented as statements of fact by The VIP Seat, its hosts, or any company named. Nothing in this issue is legal or compliance advice; readers should consult their own counsel about KYC, AML, and other obligations that may apply to them. Wingform, AB Jets, REAL Jet, and Leviate Air Group are sponsors of The VIP Seat. Coverage of publicly traded companies reflects the personal opinions of the hosts and does not constitute investment, financial, tax, or legal advice, nor a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any security. The hosts are not registered investment advisors and may hold positions in companies discussed. All investments carry risk. Readers should conduct their own research and consult a qualified financial professional before making any investment decision.
