Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour may very well go down as the biggest concert of all-time, but unfortunately for some fans, there was an ugly side to it.
Two people have been arrested after they allegedly helped steal more than 900 tickets – many of which were for the Eras Tour – and then resold them online for more than $600,000 in profit.
The office of Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz revealed that Tyrone Rose, 20, of Kingston, Jamaica and Shamara P. Simmons, 31, of Jamaica, Queens in New York were arrested on Thursday, Feb. 27.
They’ve been charged with grand larceny in the second degree, computer tampering in the first degree, conspiracy in the fourth degree and computer tampering in the fourth degree.
“According to the charges, these defendants tried to use the popularity of Taylor Swift’s concert tour and other high-profile events to profit at the [expense] of others,” Katz said in a statement.
“They allegedly exploited a loophole through an offshore ticket vendor to steal tickets to the biggest concert tour of the last decade and then resold those seats for an extraordinary profit of more than $600,000.”
“This takedown highlights the vigilance of my office’s Cybercrime and Cryptocurrency Unit as well as the importance of working with our industry partners to combat fraudulent activities and ensure the protection of consumers.”
How the scam worked
As per the D.A.’s office, Rose had an accomplice, who has not been apprehended yet, working at a third-party contractor called Sutherland for StubHub in Kingston, Jamaica.
They are said to have used their access to StubHub’s system to “find a backdoor into a secure area of the network where already sold tickets were given a URL and queued to be emailed to the purchaser to download.”
They then redirected the URLs to the emails of Simmons and “now deceased accomplice who lived in Queens”. The pair in New York then downloaded the tickets from the re-routed URL” and resold the tickets by posting them on StubHub for profit.
It’s noted that around 993 tickets were intercepted and then resold for around $635,000. Along with tickets to Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, there were also some for Adele and Ed Sheehan concerts, as well as NBA games and the US Open Tennis Championship.
