BSTickets.com meant BullS**t Ticket Scam all along!
The lid was blown apart on an international ticket scam site BSTickets.com that may have scammed hundreds of people in the guise of providing tickets to Super Bowl and other sports events.
The scam fell apart thanks to an unnamed victim from Hawthorne Woods, Illinois who approached the New Castle County Police when he failed to receive tickets that he had bought at the website. The man had shelled out $2800 for tickets to the Super Bowl in 2005. He had found out from the website that it was based in Wilmington, which came under the jurisdiction of this county.
The investigations were started by the County Police in December, 2005. But soon they had to enlist the services of other agencies when the scope of the scam dawned on them. 150 victims from across the world came forward and reported against the website.
Forces from US Attorney’s office, US Postal Inspectors and US secret services, all were pressed to the task of unraveling the scam. The investigators followed money transfers from the website’s Wachovia Bank account to its online payment processing partner, UniClear Card Services.
Several transactions over two weeks involving $5 million on this account was what attracted investigators initially to this account. They immediately issued a warrant and seized it. The victims of the scam were reimbursed their money from the funds recovered from this account.
UniClear Card Services were also caught in the net during the course of the investigations. It was charged with money laundering as it had failed to register with the US Treasury before it engaged in transmitting funds for the scam site.
An interesting thing that emerged from the investigation was that none of the victims of the scam were from Delaware. We don’t know yet whether this was a coincidence or part of the fraudster’s plan. However, it does perpetuate a pattern that online scams never target folks from/near their area.
Police are yet to make any arrests in the case. Arrests of the fraudsters could throw up other nuggets.
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