BOSTON -- A Chelsea man has been arrested for claiming he was a federal air marshal when he isn't.

Neighbors didn’t know what to think as federal agents and local police surrounded the Webster Avenue home.

“I saw the FBI here this morning but I didn’t know what the purpose was,” said Mary Finnigan, neighbor.

They were there to arrest 31-year-old Abdir-Rahman Hassan, whose been employed by Delta Airlines as a ramp worker for roughly 10 years, while leaving others to believe he was a federal air marshal.

“He told us he was an air marshal from the day he bought that house,” said one neighbor.

“I just took him for his word. He seemed like a nice guy,” said another.

And he allegedly told workers at Eagle Hill Auto Body that he was paid to protect the skies after being questioned about unreported additional damage to his car that he wanted fixed following a December accident.

When a fraud investigator for the auto insurance company paid him a visit at his home, they say Hassan answered the door with a handgun holstered on his hip. He claimed he'd been employed as a marshal for 9 years, getting paid roughly $4,500 per month.

He added: "I'm a US Air Marshal and I have to catch a flight at noon today because I’m going to Detroit."

For now, prosecutors are not claiming that he ever posed as an air marshal while working at Logan Airport, where Delta has grounded the ramp worker, suspending him from his job.

Hassan is now charged with impersonating an air marshal. He faces three years in prison and a quarter-million dollar fine.