‘Ground-breaking’ court case sees fraudulent traders jailed

A pair of ticket touts who raked in millions of pounds worth of profits have been sentenced to a total of six and a half years behind bars following a ground-breaking hearing at Leeds Crown Court.

The sentences follow the first successful prosecution against a company fraudulently reselling tickets on a large scale.

Peter Hunter, 51, was sentenced to four years in prison and David Thomas Smith, 66, to 30 months behind bars. It follows an investigation by the National Trading Standards eCrime Team, which is hosted by North Yorkshire County Council and City of York Council.

Earlier this month, (13 February) jurors at Leeds Crown Court found Hunter and Smith guilty of fraudulently and dishonestly buying and reselling tickets for high-profile music and entertainment events.

The pair, who are from London, ran BZZ Limited, a multi-million pound limited company. Through this business they purchased and resold hundreds of tickets at inflated prices for events and concerts such as Ed Sheeran, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (the play), Madness, McBusted and many other mainstream acts.

The judge found that Hunter and Smith committed their offences between May 2010 and December 2017. They made a net profit of £3.5m in the last two years of the fraud.

It meant thousands of people were denied the opportunity to purchase tickets at face value, as well as those who were sold invalid and overpriced tickets.

Despite multiple warnings to desist and measures imposed to prevent fraudulent purchases, the offences were only brought to an end following the intervention by National Trading Standards.

Investigations by National Trading Standards found the defendants used several dishonest tactics to purchase multiple tickets from primary ticket sellers such as Ticketmaster, Eventim and AXS. This meant BZZ Limited was dishonestly and fraudulently competing with consumers to purchase tickets from the websites of primary sellers while, listing those tickets for sale to consumers at inflated prices.

The company’s tactics circumvented the platforms’ terms and conditions and their automated systems to block multiple purchases. This included Hunter and Smith buying more than 750 Ed Sheeran tickets in 2017.

To evade the platforms’ systems, the defendants: Acquired, created and maintained a network of identities that were used to commit the fraud; used a number of different people to buy tickets, causing a significant number of other persons to become involved in the fraudulent behaviour; acquired specialist software including bots; Insomniac Browser; Omni Checker and Roboform to support their fraud.

Lord Toby Harris, chairman of National Trading Standards, said: “This is an important milestone in the fight to tackle online ticket touts who fraudulently buy and resell tickets to thousands of victims to line their own pockets.

“The sentences send a strong message to similar online ticket touts: these are criminal offences that can lead to prison sentences. I hope this leads to a step-change in the secondary ticketing market, making it easier and safer for consumers buying tickets in the future.

“I would like to congratulate our teams who have worked tirelessly on this investigation and would urge anyone who suspects a sale may be fraudulent to report it to the Citizens Advice Consumer Service by calling 0808 223 1133.”

Councillor Andrew Waller, executive member with responsibility for Trading Standards at City of York Council, said: “I applaud our expert investigators for unveiling and successfully prosecuting a major e-crime to protect consumers from being misled and defrauded.

“This sentence will ensure the directors of BZZ Entertainment face the consequences of their extensive and appalling actions.”

North Yorkshire County Councillor Andrew Lee, executive member for Trading Standards, said: “It is good to see unscrupulous touts jailed for abusing consumers and manipulating the ticketing market.

“It also makes me proud that officers of the National Trading Standards eCrime Team from both North Yorkshire County Council and York City Council helped deliver this landmark result.”