Police investigates touts and websites for illegal ticket sales – London 2012 Olympic Games
In light of the recent allegations made against the National Olympics committee officials and other agents regarding selling tickets of the London 2012 Olympic Games to the black market, the police have come up with a list comprising of several touts and
websites that will be investigated for being involved.
An estimated amount of 1000 touts and 30 websites have come under the suspicion for being involved in the black market sales of tickets of the London 2012 Olympics that are all set to start from July 27. All the websites that have been identified are based
outside Great Britain.
According to the London Organizing Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the total number of unauthorized websites for ticket sales are 55.
The person leading the investigation, Detective Superintendent Nick Downing, made the following comments on the issue, “Our approach has been pre-emptive from the start using every police tactic available and working with industry to target offenders. For
example, in the early days anyone who registered a domain name containing the word Olympics was contacted and warned that if they intended to sell 2012 tickets they should think again. What we have uncovered shows that organised crime networks of the highest
level which are known to us are involved in ticketing offences.”
According to the British authorities, the official ticket selling website for the London Olympics had been breached several times by touts. There were others who planned to buy tickets for the Games through proper channels but resell to the black market
at an inflated price. The police have also found links of many of the touts with serious organised crime. All these touts have been put on the list for investigation.
Up till this point, a total of 64 people have been arrested in for being involved in illegal selling of the London 2012 tickets. Out of this, 35 arrests were made for ticket touting while 29 were done for fraudulent sales of tickets.
The police have stepped up its investigation into the matter of illegal ticket sales after the Sunday Times reported the involvement of top National Olympic Committee officials in black market ticket sales. The name of the Greek Olympic Committee president
Spyros Capralos came to light but he was defended by the country’s National Olympic Committee. According to the report, Capralos managed to convince Lord Coe to give him more tickets on the grounds that the demand was more.
However, the International Olympic Committee has decided to suspend ticket sales for the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics till the time the current issue is resolved.
This is not the first time that the ticketing system of the London 2012 Olympic Games has received bad publicity. The London 2012 organizers have been criticised in the past for developing a slow and frustrating system that has also been called unjust by
some.
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