Continental Airlines is suing 9 pilots and has fired 8 for their involvement in a pension fraud scheme that involved fake divorces back in 2005.  It worked like this:  the pilots would get a so-called “paper divorce” (a divorce on paper where the couple did not actually split up) and sign over pilot pension benefits to the now ex-spouse.  The ex-spouse would then request a lump-sum payment of the benefit.  Then, flush with cash, the couple would re-marry.  (Brilliant!)

The airline says that the pilots went through with the fraud because they were afraid they would lose their pension benefits in the industry’s financial turmoil.