Police Launch Preliminary Probe into ‘Online Scalping’ of Pro Baseball Postseason Tickets

[Financial News] Police have launched a preliminary investigation into sellers suspected of illegally reselling professional baseball postseason tickets online, before formally booking them as suspects.
The Korean National Police Agency said on the 20th that it had received a request for an investigation from the Korea Sports Promotion Foundation, the reporting body designated by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, and was looking into suspected cases of illegal resale of professional baseball postseason tickets on secondhand trading platforms and elsewhere.
Police plan to investigate the allegations, focusing on cyber investigation units at provincial and metropolitan police agencies. In particular, they will check whether macro programs or accounts registered in other people’s names were used to book tickets, and investigate whether there were any additional illegal acts, such as obstruction of business.
Depending on the findings, police also plan to pursue compulsory investigative measures and recover criminal proceeds. They will consider whether to seek arrest warrants, taking into account the scale and methods of the illegal resales and the risk of flight or destruction of evidence, and pursue measures such as pre-indictment preservation for confiscation or forfeiture of criminal proceeds.
Under the amended National Sports Promotion Act, which took effect on August 28, even ticket scalping without the use of macro programs became punishable. This includes habitually reselling tickets above their purchase price without the seller’s consent, or doing so for commercial purposes.
Police have successively arrested professional ticket scalpers who used macro programs and other means to secure large numbers of tickets and resell them for hefty profits.
Last June, the Gyeonggi Northern Provincial Police Agency arrested a scalper who used macro programs and other people’s accounts to snap up tickets for concerts and other events, then resold tickets worth 2.4 billion won on secondhand trading platforms over about eight years. In the case, a pre-indictment preservation order for the forfeiture of about 1.2 billion won was also issued.
The Ulsan Police Agency also arrested a scalper last August who used the same method to secure tickets for performances and other events and resold tickets worth 800 million won over about 11 months. About 400 million won was also subject to pre-indictment preservation for forfeiture.
Police urged caution, noting that under the amended law, illegal ticket resales meeting certain criteria may be punishable regardless of whether macro programs were used. 

[email protected] Kim Ye-ji Reporter