41°
Two people were accused of stealing nearly 1,000 tickets to high-demand events, including the popstar's record-breaking concert tour. Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz announced arrests in the case in a news release on Monday, Mar. 3.
Tyrone Rose, 20, of Kingston, Jamaica, and Shamara Simmons, 31, of Queens, NY, were facing charges including grand larceny, conspiracy, and computer tampering.
"These defendants tried to use the popularity of Taylor Swift's concert tour and other high-profile events to profit at the expense of others," said Katz. "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."
Investigators said Rose and an unarrested person worked for Sutherland, a Jamaican third-party contractor for StubHub. The two employees stole StubHub links for purchased tickets before the URLs were sent to buyers to download.
The workers redirected the ticket links to Simmons and a now-dead accomplice in Queens. After downloading the stolen tickets, Simmons and the accomplice flipped them on StubHub, pocketing about $635,000.
Pop singer Taylor Swift performing during The Eras Tour.
The scam ran from June 2022 to July 2023, intercepting 993 tickets from about 350 StubHub orders. Other tickets were for seats at Adele and Ed Sheeran concerts, NBA games, and the US Open.
The Eras Tour grossed more than $2 billion, according to Kevin Evers, an author working on a book about Swift's financial success. The tour concluded in Vancouver on Sunday, Dec. 8, 2024, after more than 150 concerts across five continents.
Katz also said StubHub notified investigators about the fraud. Anyone who may have been a victim of the scam should call the Queens DA's cyber crimes team at 718-286-6673.
If convicted, Rose and Simmons each face up to 15 years in prison.
Click here to follow Daily Voice Laurel and receive free news updates.
