ThePolice Central E-Crime Unit(PCeU) has closed more
than 100 websites in the UK and overseas that tricked people into
buying fake football tickets worth millions of pounds, the
Metropolitan Police Service said today.
The sites had been selling tickets to Premier League and
Football Association matches in the UK. The tickets were either
fraudulent or non-existent, the Met said.
PCeU spokesman Detective Superintendent Charlie McMurdie said no
prosecutions would result from the action. The intention had been
to gather intelligence and make people aware of the dangers of
dealing with fake sites as the football season kicked off.
She expected to run the exercise again in the run up to the 2012
Olympics in London.
McMurdie said many sites sold legitimate tickets to other shows,
but only some were allowed to offer football tickets. Legitimate
ticket vendors who were selling football tickets illegally were
told to remove the offer.
McMurdie said it was hard to say how many tickets had been sold
or for how much. "The intelligence suggests it could run into
millions of pounds," she said.
McMurdie said the sites looked genuine. An offending website in
one country could be owned by someone living in another and the
money routed to a third. The money was laundered through legitimate
companies to set up future website scams.
She said there was evidence that the scam was well-organised but
added there were lots of people doing it.
Advice to anyone buying a ticket online is to book through the
venue's website. If you are scammed, contact
Consumer Direct.