MIA collects more than $89,000 from man who made fake bomb threat

Miami International Airport officials will be showing off some big checks today — oversized copies of $83,581 payable to the Miami-Dade Aviation Department and $5,653 for the Miami-Dade Police Department, the results of civil violation fines against a man who made false bomb threats at the airport in October.

Manuel Alvarado’s “joke” about an explosive in his bag shut down parts of MIA for several hours and delayed thousands of passengers. The aviation department calculates that a delayed flight costs the airport and airlines $106 per minute.

This is the first time that the airport has been able to collect restitution for a false threat.

The check will be presented Wednesday at MIA’s monthly security consortium meeting.

This story was originally published June 3, 2015 at 9:21 AM with the headline "MIA collects more than $89,000 from man who made fake bomb threat."