Man jailed for six years for K-pop ticketing scam

A 30-year-old man has been jailed for six years after swindling K-pop fans out of 595 million won (€413,000) in a concert ticketing scam.

The defendant, identified only by his surname of Kim, was convicted of multiple counts of fraud in South Korea.

Seoul Central District Court heard that Kim pocketed profits from the sale of non-existent tickets for concerts by acts such as Blackpink, Lim Young-woong and IU.

The Korea Herald reports that Kim also obtained loans using the credit cards of his victims based on the information he gathered via the scam.

“The defendant continued to go on scamming his victims even while he was being tried for fraud, and used the profits for gambling and making cryptocurrency investments,” the court was told.

The South Korean music business has been targeted by a number of scams

Kim has appealed the ruling.

A recent survey by the Record Label Industry Association of Korea revealed that 32.8% of 19 to 29-year-olds admitted to buying a ticket from tout at least once, with 20% saying they had spent more than 500,000 won (€347) on a ticket.

The South Korean music business has been targeted by a number of scams. Last year, K-pop giants SM Entertainment and HYBE warned fans about a fake event called Fest World Tour, which falsely advertised that acts such as Enhypen, Mirae, WayV, NCT Dream and Seventeen would be performing at stadiums across Asia.

In addition, the agency representing Young-woong said it cancelled 118 ticket sales for his 19-21 January 2024 shows after discovering that some were being resold at more than 6x face value.

Elsewhere, singer Jang Beom-june voided all tickets bought for his January and February concerts due to touting, opting to hold an online ballot instead.

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