Scalpers who sold concert tickets for 8 times face value referred to police

Singer Lee Young-ji made headlines in March when she vented her frustration about ticket scalpers on a YouTube channel.

She said she had gone to great lengths to keep her concert ticket prices down — even by as little as 10,000 won ($7) — only to see scalpers resell them at inflated prices for profit. “I want to wipe out these lowlifes,” she said.

Authorities have now caught people who did exactly that — profiting from reselling tickets to concerts and professional baseball games.

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism said Wednesday it had referred 15 people to police on Tuesday after analyzing online scalping reports and monitoring data for professional sports and performances collected from Jan. 5 to June 16.

Four of those referred were caught selling concert tickets, with total sales amounting to 11.64 million won.

One seller listed tickets to a performance by Seventeen unit S.Coups X Mingyu at 1.2 million won — eight times the face value of 143,000 won.

Authorities also found evidence of a single person selling more than 10 tickets to performances where purchases were limited to one per person, including BTS’s world tour “Arirang” concert in Busan and Seventeen’s world tour “NEW_” encore concert.

Eleven of those referred were caught scalping professional baseball tickets, with total sales reaching 36.84 million won.

One seller resold a single professional baseball ticket — a five-person table seat with a face value of 150,000 won — for 350,000 won.

The referrals focused on suspected illegal ticket sales posted on major secondhand trading platforms, particularly cases where the same account repeatedly sold multiple tickets or listed dozens of tickets for a specific game or performance.

The ministry said it considered such bulk sales to exceed the scope of ordinary personal transfers or normal ticket purchases, and determined it could not rule out the possibility that the tickets had been acquired through illicit means such as automated programs.

The ministry said it is also preparing to revise subordinate regulations — including mandatory anti-fraud measures, fines and reward payments for tipsters — and to set up a reporting agency ahead of the amended National Sports Promotion Act and Performance Act taking effect Aug. 28. The revised laws ban all fraudulent ticket transactions regardless of whether automated programs were used, and strengthen penalties including fines of up to 50 times the sale price.

paq@heraldcorp.com