Fraud Bureau Make Arrests Over Gigsport.com Ticket Website Scam
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Saturday, 14 August 2010 |
Written by Stereoboard.com
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The National Fraud Intelligence Bureau has made its first arrests for ticket fraud after it launched Operation Cyborg this week, which led to the arrests of four individuals. All four suspects have since been released on police bail pending further inquiries.
Those arrested were a man aged 42 and woman aged 28, who are married and live in Waltham Abbey, a 68-year-old Chingford man and a 48-year-old man who was held in the City.
Stereoboard.com understands that the four were arrested by the NFIB on suspicion of running a fraudulent music and sporting tickets website at Gigsport.com after hundreds of customers had reportedly been ripped off by the alleged scam operation.
 The new bureau, which is a part of the City of London Police, had received intelligence of over 265 alleged victims who had lost over £40,000. Police believe many hundreds more people may have been deceived by the website.
Despite the arrests it is still business as usual for these individuals, with the website Gigsport.com still operational today, duping unsuspecting music fans and bringing unwelcome distrust to a secondary marketplace that helps 1000's of people to find tickets for sold out events every day.
The investigation, codenamed Operation Cyborg, is one of several cases in the month ahead where police will be drawing on NFIB intelligence to lead them to the doorsteps of suspected criminals.
Head of Economic Crime, Det Chief Supt Steve Head, said: “Today we saw how the NFIB is going to change the rules of engagement in favour of all those who are working to fight fraud.
“Without the Bureau many more people could have fell victim to a criminal gang who we believe to have already conned hundreds of people into paying large sums of money for non-existent tickets.
"I now look forward to police forces across the country using NFIB intelligence to track down the fraudsters who are destroying lives, damaging businesses and costing the UK economy billions of pounds.”
Bernard Herdan, CEO of the National Fraud Authority, said: “A case like this shows the importance of the public reporting fraud and how this contributes to an effective enforcement response. We urge anyone who has lost money to any type of fraud to contact Action Fraud so the police can bring more criminals to justice.”
David Gray, from Meopham in Kent, paid more than £1,000 for Wimbledon tickets in June but never received them.
"What I was surprised at was the actual make-up of the actual website, which was very professional and very tempting indeed," he told BBC News.
Another victim was Tammy Foster, from Birmingham. Tammy spent £185 on two Pink concert tickets that never arrived. Clearly distraught by the whole experience, she said: "I wanted to kill someone. I was absolutely disgusted. It was made worse because my partner had bought the tickets for my birthday."
She added: "One time when I did phone up, they were verbally abusive to me, telling me to basically go to Trading Standards, and that nothing was going to get done about it and not to phone their office again."
The investigation is ongoing.
Remember if you are looking for tickets for music and sporting events - do not be duped by scam websites. Use Stereoboard.com Ticket Search to find tickets from official and legitimate sources.NOTE FROM THE EDITOR
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