"Selling a 110,000-Won Ticket for 3 Million Won"... Buying Apartments and Commercial Spaces with Scalped Ticket Profits

[Anchor]

A man in his 30s has recently been arrested by the police on charges of making 2.4 billion won by selling scalped tickets over an eight-year period. Investigations revealed that he used this money to buy an apartment and two commercial spaces.

Reporter Lee Se-hyeon has the story.

[Reporter]

[I folded the tickets. I folded the tickets, myself.]

The man in his 30s, surnamed A, being arrested by the police last June.

Inside his home, multiple computers, smartphones, and admission tickets were discovered.

Suspect A is accused of purchasing about 9,000 in-demand tickets, such as idol concert tickets, and reselling them at a huge markup over a period of 7 years and 7 months starting in 2018.

After graduating from college, he continued only to sell scalped tickets, and his verified ticket sales alone amount to about 2.4 billion won.

Suspect A purchased one apartment in Gyeonggi Province and two commercial units in the same building with the money earned from ticket scalping.

The police identified 1.3 billion won in criminal proceeds, including these commercial spaces and deposit bonds, and took measures to preserve them for confiscation.

He reaped exorbitant profits of up to nearly 30 times the original price. For instance, he bought a BTS concert ticket from 2019 priced at 110,000 won and resold it for 3 million won, and bought a ticket for Tottenham Hotspur's visit to Korea the year before last for 40,000 won and resold it for 1.65 million won.

Suspect A, who had even registered as an e-commerce business, denied the charges, claiming, "I didn't know it was illegal and I faithfully paid my taxes." However, records were found of him searching Gemini for terms such as "how ticket scalpers get caught by the police" or "whether it is difficult to prove charges without a search and seizure."

[Kim Jeong-hyun / Head of Cyber Investigation Unit 2, Gyeonggi Bukbu Provincial Police Agency: After coming across news reports about crackdown on ticket scalping around March, he stopped illegal sales. He closed his business and wiped all the PCs and mobile phones used in the crime to destroy evidence.]

Various data related to the crimes were confirmed in a USB memory drive secured by the police through a search and seizure, and his nearly eight-year crime spree was finally caught.

(Photo courtesy of Gyeonggi Bukbu Provincial Police Agency)
(Video reporting: Joo Yong-jin, Video editing: Park Ji-in, Design: Kim Ye-ji)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.