Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour ended last year, but authorities have finally apprehended a pair of thieves who managed to steal hundreds of tickets by exploiting a loophole in StubHub’s back end.
Per The Hollywood Reporter, two cybercriminals who stole and re-sold hundreds of digital tickets to different concerts and sporting events like the U.S. Open have been arrested by police. Tyrone Rose and Shamara Simmons have been charged with grand larceny, computer tampering, and conspiracy. If found guilty, the pair could face anywhere from 3-15 years in prison. Rose and Simmons are set to appear in court and submit their pleas this Friday, but the police’s investigation will continue as they are said to have worked with a number of accomplices — at least one of whom is now dead, while another has yet to be caught.
According to the Queens District Attorney’s Office, Rose, Simmons, and other members of the crime ring obtained the tickets by intercepting legitimate StubHub URLs generated after legal ticket purchases. Those ill-gotten URLs would then be passed along to other participants in the scheme, who would use them to resell the tickets on StubHub itself.
Between June 2022 and July 2023, the crew managed to re-sell about 900 tickets for shows including Swift, Adele, and Ed Sheeran for about $600,000. It’s not entirely clear how the group’s plan first came together, but it seems as if they were able to discover the exploit because some of them worked for Sutherland Global Services, a Kingston-based IT contractor. In the wake of the news, StubHub terminated its working relationship with Sutherland.
In a statement about the case, Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said that the crime ring wanted to “use the popularity of Taylor Swift’s concert tour and other high-profile events to profit at the expensive of others.”
Katz added that “This takedown highlights the vigilance of my office’s Cybercrime and Cryptocurrency Unit as well as the importance of working with our industry partners to combat fraudulent activities and ensure the protection of consumers.”
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
