Two New York-based persons were arrested for allegedly stealing over 900 concert tickets of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour and selling them for over USD 600,000, the US media reported on Wednesday.
Tyrone Rose and Shamara P. Simmons, residents of Queens, were arrested under computer tampering and grand larceny charges. The Queens District Attorney’s Office alleged that Rose and Simmons fraudulently sold tickets to concerts by various artists beside Taylor, including Ed Sheeran and Adele.
Tyrone Rose, 20, who worked at Sunderland, a third-party contractor for American ticket exchange and resale company StubHub in Jamaica’s Kingston, used her access to intercept concert tickets that were sold.
According to the Attorney’s office, Rose stole the URLs of the sold tickets and forwarded them to Shamara P. Simmons. They then reposted the URLs of the sold tickets back on the website and resold them to the fans to earn a profit. The duo have continued this cyber swindle from June 2022 to July 2023.
“According to the charges, 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. 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 USD 600,000,” the office said in a statement.
Taylor Swift kicked off her sixth concert tour, The Eras Tour, on March 17, 2023, and performed at 149 shows over a period of more than a year. She wrapped up the tour with the last show on December 8, 2024, in Vancouver, Canada. The singer’s musical world tour generated over USD 2 billion in ticket sales.
The 35-year-old singer’s recent album, The Tortured Poets Department, emerged as one of the most streamed albums on various music streaming platforms. Released on April 19, 2024, The Tortured Poets Department consists of 16 tracks and a bonus song titled Fortnight.
Recently, the artiste created history by becoming the first female artist on Spotify to surpass 100 billion streams.
