Two people have been arrested and charged in connection with the cybertheft of nearly 1,000 concert and event tickets, the majority of them for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour. The tickets were then resold, earning a profit of $635,000 (U.S.), according to Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz in New York.
The digital tickets were allegedly stolen by two individuals working at Sutherland Global Services, a third-party contractor for StubHub in Kingston, Jamaica. The stolen tickets were subsequently emailed to two co-conspirators in Jamaica, Queens, who resold them on StubHub.
“These defendants tried to use the popularity of Taylor Swift’s concert tour and other high-profile events to profit at the expensive of others,” Katz said in a statement. “They allegedly exploited a loophole through an offshore ticket vendor to steal tickets to the biggest concert tour of the last decade and then resold those seats for an extraordinary profit of more than $600,000.”
In addition to Eras Tour tickets, the accused also allegedly resold tickets to Adele and Ed Sheeran concerts, as well as NBA games and the US Open Tennis Championships.
Katz added that StubHub first alerted her office to the thefts.
Tyrone Rose, 20, of Kingston, Jamaica, and Shamara P. Simmons, 31, of Jamaica, Queens, were arrested on Thursday by the district attorney’s Cybercrime and Cryptocurrency Unit. Both were charged with grand larceny in the second degree, computer tampering in the first degree, conspiracy in the fourth degree and computer tampering in the fourth degree, and face up to 15 years in prison if convicted.
Rose’s alleged accomplice has not been apprehended, while Simmons’s alleged accomplice, who lived in Queens, is now deceased. The investigation remains ongoing to determine the extent of the operation, including other potential co-conspirators.
In a statement to the Star, Mark Streams, StubHub’s chief legal officer, said that upon discovering the criminal scheme, the company immediately reported it to Sutherland and to the Queens District Attorney’s office and local police.
“The individuals involved, employees of (Sutherland), exploited a system vulnerability to fraudulently resell tickets,” Streams said. “They were swiftly identified and terminated. StubHub has since replaced or refunded all identified orders impacted and strengthened security measures to further protect our fans and sellers.”
StubHub also confirmed that it has terminated its relationship with Sutherland.
Last fall, StubHub and other ticket resellers, including VividSeats and GameTime, faced criticism after fans and artists accused them of engaging in ”speculative ticketing,” a practice by which scalpers or unofficial sellers list tickets that they haven’t actually purchased, in the hopes that they will eventually be able to find tickets to provide to buyers.
Among those artists were Oasis, who posted a warning to their fans on X in October: “Thousands of fake Oasis tickets have already been discovered on Stubhub and Vivid Seats before the North America tour has even gone on sale!”
Kevin Callahan, StubHub’s head of North America government relations, responded to the criticism by saying that “many industry stakeholders, season ticket holders and professional resellers have access to tickets long before public sales begin.”
Ahead of Swift’s two-week residency at Toronto’s Rogers Centre last fall, StubHub was listing tickets for the upper bowl for a minimum of $4,000 — more than 20 times face value.
In November, Peel police announced that they were searching for a Toronto man who was allegedly involved in a $38,000 scheme to sell fraudulent Taylor Swift and Formula One race tickets. Days later, Halton police announced they were investigating some 40 complaints of counterfeit or non-existent Swift tickets, with an estimated total value of $70,000, all involving the same vendor.
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