Hong Kong and Shenzhen authorities have arrested a total of 12 people in a joint operation targeting the manufacturing and sale of suspected fake concert tickets.
More than 400 high-quality counterfeit or half-finished fake concert tickets were seized by Hong Kong and Shenzhen police in a recent crackdown on a cross-border syndicate, the city’s police force said at a press conference on Sunday.
Four men, aged between 24 and 39, were apprehended in Shenzhen, including a Hong Kong man who mainly resides in mainland China and is said to be the mastermind of the syndicate.
During the raid in Shenzhen, local authorities seized suspected counterfeit tickets for ongoing and upcoming events, printing machines, invisible ink, cutters, envelopes, and other equipment used to produce the suspected fake tickets.
In Hong Kong, seven men and one woman, aged 19 to 65, were arrested for offences including conspiracy to defraud, possession of false documents, obtaining money by deception, and money laundering.
They were linked to at least 16 cases of fake concert tickets, with total estimated losses exceeding HK$100,000.
Local media reported that the tickets included the concert of South Korean pop star Kwon Ji-yong, also known as G-Dragon. Police said last week that his fans were scammed out of more than HK$610,000 worth of fake tickets to his sold-out Hong Kong concerts.
Police said the seized tickets were highly convincing, with the font, anti-counterfeit features, and paper quality closely resembling those of genuine tickets.
However, there were minor flaws that could be spotted with the naked eye, for example, differences in the wording of the English terms and conditions, as well as variations in the placement of punctuation marks in the Chinese text.
In June, eight people were arrested for allegedly selling high-quality counterfeit tickets to concerts by Cantopop star Nicholas Tse, Taiwanese singer Jay Chou, and four other musicians.
The eight suspects were part of a cross-border syndicate involved in at least 40 suspected scams, according to local media, with total losses estimated at around HK$650,000.
