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Four indicted in US concert ticket scheme
WASHINGTON — Four men are facing charges for hacking into computers to obtain tickets to hot concerts and other events in a scheme that netted over 25 million dollars, the Justice…
WASHINGTON — Four men are facing charges for hacking into computers to obtain tickets to hot concerts and other events in a scheme that netted over 25 million dollars, the Justice Department said Monday.California residents Kenneth Lowson, 40, Kristofer Kirsch, 37, Faisal Nahdi, 36, and Joel Stevenson, 37, and their company Wiseguy Tickets were named in a 43-count indictment.They were accused of fraudulently acquiring over 1.5 million tickets to concerts, sporting events and other live entertainment from online ticket sellers like Ticketmaster and then reselling them to brokers for a profit.Lowson, Kirsch and Stevenson surrendered to the FBI in New Jersey, while Nahdi, who is not currently in the United States, "is expected to surrender to authorities in the coming weeks," the Justice Department said."At a time when the Internet has brought convenience and fairness to the ticket marketplace, these defendants gamed the system with a sophisticated fraud operation that generated over 25 million dollars in illicit profits," US attorney Paul Fishman said.Ticketmaster, Tickets.com and other online ticket vendors generally restrict ticket sales to individual purchasers and restrict the number that can be bought with a number of security measures.Wiseguy Tickets allegedly "worked with computer programmers in Bulgaria to establish a nationwide network of computers that impersonated individual visitors to the online ticket vendors' websites," according to the Justice Department.It said the group created and managed hundreds of fake Internet domains like stupidcellphone.com and thousands of e-mail addresses to obtain tickets to events and further disguise their illicit activities.Wiseguy, for example, allegedly managed to obtain nearly half of the 440 general admission floor tickets for a July 2008 concert by Bruce Springsteen.The four could face several dozen years in prison if convicted. Copyright © 2010 AFP. All rights reserved. More »
last modification 2010-03-02 01:30:16
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