Two scalpers have landed themselves in prison having earned over £10.8 million in profits from reselling Ed Sheeran, Adele, and Taylor Swift tickets in London.
Between 2010 and 2017, over 10 million pounds of profit were brought in by couple Peter Hunter and David Smith. They are now found guilty of trading via Ticket Wiz and BZZ by using bot software and a slew of different identities to scalp concert and theatre tickets.
During this time, scalpers Hunter and Smith of London purchased on the upwards of 750 tickets for Ed Sheeran concerts, as well as numerous tickets to Adele, Taylor Swift, Rod Stewart, Lady Gaga, and Blink-182.
Then, the couple sold the tickets via Viagogo, StubHub, and many others at massively inflated prices. Throughout their seven year operation, the couple profited more than £10 million.
The investigation began as Ed Sheeran became frustrated at the massive amounts of scalping that was going on at his gigs, with many of his fans being unable to attend his concerts due to the exorbitant prices the tickets had been hiked up to.
When police caught news that Hunter and Smith were scalping at an incredible rate, investigators raided their homes where they found over 100 different payment methods in 37 different aliases. On top of this find, the scalpers had tricked multiple site restrictions by using a multitude of different mailing addresses and hundreds of fake email addresses.
After a trial involving Judge Mushtaq Khokhar, the English couple were found guilty of “sustained dishonesty for a number of years.” The couples have been sentenced to a total of six and a half years behind bars, with Hunter in holds for four years, and Smith in bars for two and a half.
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As Billboard reports, “the prosecution is the first of its kind in the U.K. since National Trading Standards started investigating bulk buying and reselling tickets in 2017.”
With many fans reaching frustration when it comes to buying tickets, especially when it comes to purchasing ‘second-hand’ tickets, hopefully this prosecution will lead to less ticket scalpers and more affordable concerts.
Watch ‘Everything Has Changed (feat. Ed Sheeran)’ by Taylor Swift:
