How Chinese gangs are scamming Japan’s Olympics ticketing system for major profits
- A loophole allows the gangs to cash in on frenzied demand for the first round of 3.98 million tickets issued for domestic buyers
- The gangs employ hundreds of Chinese living in Japan to buy tickets from registered vendors then resell them at up to 10 times the price to rich Chinese
They are easily able to get around measures designed to stop the tickets being resold, thanks to a simple loophole: only the person who is registered to buy the ticket can access the stadium but the name of the registered owner can be changed online with an ID and password issued at the time of purchase.
The loophole is allowing the gangs to cash in on frenzied demand for the first round of 3.98 million tickets issued for domestic buyers wanting to attend events at the games – which run from July 24 to August 9.
Demand for the tickets, which went on sale in May, has been so strong that many people have been unable to even log on to official sites to buy tickets and the demand has been driven even higher by the purchases of the criminal groups.
The weekly news magazine Friday interviewed a Chinese national who had managed to circumvent regulations on the resale of tickets.
