Flintstone,
What leads you to suspect he is lying?
Let me tell you a couple of stories, which are quite similar to Locust one:
We used to operate a passenger jet, then it was returned to leasing company after lease expiration and got a new operator (in first world country). This operator starts then to operate the same regular charter route which we used to fly some time before. The only difference that we used to do a tech stop unless pax load was less than ~70% (very rare occasion) due to MTOW limitation. New operator was flying always non-stop. Before you ask me why I'm so sure they bended the rules, I explain. I was so much intrigued about their non-stop performance that I did a bit of investigation: I spoke to my ops people to find out if there is any way to play around with alternates, winds etc to make it looking ok - NO, I spoke to leasing company and some other sources to find out if they upgraded engine thrust and MTOW - NO, I went myself onboard to check if they have less seats, different config, whatever - NO, I went to tour operator to ask if there are any restrictions on max seats sold - NO, I spoke to ramp people to ask if they regularily have light pax load - NO (always full), they are same JAR OPS so no difference in calculations etc. So I know and I have evidence. However I never used it in any way and not going to. Those guys did not survived in last year bloodbath anyway.
When it comes to cargo ops, you wouldn't believe some stories which are actually true...