The Gyeonggi Northern Provincial Police Agency’s Cyber Crime Investigation Unit arrested a suspected ticket scalper on Wednesday (September 16) who had been illegally reselling tickets for years. The man in his 30s used automated ticket-buying programs to purchase large quantities of popular concert tickets and resell them at inflated prices, selling nearly 9,000 tickets over seven and a half years and raking in more than 2.4 billion won — even using the illegal proceeds to buy an apartment and two commercial storefronts.
According to South Korean media reports, from September 2018 to April of this year, the suspect used automated programs and accounts belonging to himself and six relatives — seven accounts in total — to snap up large quantities of tickets for domestic and international singers’ concerts, musicals, and sporting events, accumulating as many as 8,967 tickets, which he then resold at several times to dozens of times the original price for huge profits.
These included global superstars BTS’ 2019 concert, where he sold tickets with an original price of 110,000 won for 3 million won — a markup of 27 times. For Stray Kids’ concert last year, he sold tickets originally priced at 165,000 won for 2 million won, and for a SEVENTEEN fan meeting, tickets were scalped from 110,000 won up to 1.8 million won.
Police said the man had even registered an e-commerce business license to cover his tracks. He had long exchanged ticket-scalping intelligence in a group with 1,309 members, but in March of this year, after 16 accomplices in the group were arrested by police for scalping-related crimes, he quickly stopped and formatted his phone and computer to destroy evidence. However, when police later raided his home, they still found a USB drive containing key criminal records, and through digital forensics on his phone, they successfully restored all of his criminal evidence.
During questioning, the man argued that he “did not know selling scalped tickets was illegal, and that he had honestly paid taxes as required,” claiming his actions had caused no harm to others. Police have taken pre-indictment seizure measures on approximately 1,264.39 million won in assets, including his two commercial storefronts and deposit claims.
