British authorities this week arrested five people in relation to recent incidents of alleged ticket fraud where fans never received tickets they ordered for the Beijing Olympics and several music festivals.
According to BBC News, the five people arrested are associated with Xclusive Leisure and Hospitality Ltd., which has been at the heart of the trouble for several months. The company was the focus of an investigation by a Texas lawyer who bought tickets to the Olympics from Xclusive but never received them, one of thousands of other customers allegedly left in the lurch by the UK broker.
In addition, Xclusive allegedly reneged on delivering on hundreds of ticket orders for several major UK music festivals this year, including the famous Reading and Leeds events. The five arrested individuals have all been released on bond.
Officials from the UK Serious Fraud Office (SFO) have launched an investigation into Xclusive’s alleged misdeeds, and they are calling on consumers who may have been bilked out of tickets to contact them through the SFO Web site.
“We’ve put a simple form on our website which will enable people to put details of the tickets they wanted and the loss they suffered,” Richard Alderman, director of the SFO, told BBC Radio 4.
