Yard team smashes soccer scam

Scotland Yard has smashed a suspected multi-million pound ticket touting racket in which fans were charged up to 25 times the original price to see tomorrow's FA Cup final.

In the past week officers from the Football Intelligence Unit seized more than 200 genuine Premiership and FA Cup tickets being sold illegally from nine outlets around London.

While World Cup tickets are yet to become widely available, one investigator was offered eight tickets for the England-Argentina match for £910 each, not including flights. Although once again they were real tickets and not forgeries, the best seats for the game on 2 June are priced at around £60.

In a raid witnessed by the Evening Standard, police seized one of their biggest hauls to date at the office of a ticket agency, in Wembley Park. As officers swooped on the firm, which also sells tickets for major West End shows, the owner tried to escape through a back entrance with a cash-box containing 12 cup final tickets under his arm.

Inside the offices police found another 70 Premiership tickets, selling for hugely inflated prices, and 33 membership cards for leading clubs. Police estimated the haul at more than £25,000.

The investigation was carried out jointly with Westminster Council's trading standards office. One trading standards officer found the company advertising on the internet and called them to purchase five tickets for the all-London final between Arsenal and Chelsea at Cardiff 's Millennium Stadium. She paid nearly £3,000 over the phone by credit card for the tickets, normally on sale for £20 each to the clubs' season ticket holders.

A Scotland Yard spokesman said: "This is a major operation to crack down on ticket touts in the build up to the FA Cup Final and the World Cup.

"We will not tolerate the unscrupulous activity of the touts and we are urging people, however desperate they may be to watch a game, not to buy tickets from the touts. During the last World Cup it is estimated that supporters lost millions of pounds through the illegal market in tickets."

Sergeant Andy Lea, who led yesterday's raid, said: "This operation has netted in excess of £200,000 worth of tickets. However, I believe this to be a multi-million pound business simply because they are all established agencies which have been trading for a while and will continue to trade."

Among the tickets seized were seven for the crunch Premiership game between Arsenal and Manchester United next week, which were expected to sell for at least £300 each.

So far police have seized 120 tickets from outlets including South Bank Ticket Agency, Ticket Agency, in Bayswater Road; G7 Hospitality in Piccadilly, and Equinox Ticket Booth, in Leicester Square, where tickets for the match between Spurs and Liverpool were being sold for £150 each.

Sergeant Lea said: "All too often the supporter finds that the ticket they have bought is not genuine, is never sent, or that they end up in the wrong end of the ground which can cause public disorder."

Ticket touts operate by buying genuine season tickets from holders who are not planning to attend games. The tout then sells tickets for each individual game at inflated prices, usually five to 10 times the normal price. The season ticket entitles the holder to first refusal on seats at cup matches.

Touts also send in bogus membership applications to clubs and buy dozens of tickets en bloc - thus cornering the market - so the only way many fans can see a game is by forking out extortionate sums.

It is a criminal offence for unauthorised individuals or companies to sell, expose, or even advertise tickets for all regulated matches - however, many touts advertise openly in the Yellow Pages, newspapers or on the internet.

The crime carries a maximum penalty of a £5,000 fine. Most of the firms that have been targeted have pleaded guilty and been fined in the region of £300. But the financial loss from confiscated tickets can run into thousands.