Scalpers of Jay Chou concert tickets arrested

Taipei, Oct. 25 (CNA) Taipei police on Thursday arrested a married couple for allegedly scalping tickets to concerts being staged in Taipei in December by Taiwanese pop star Jay Chou (周杰倫).

Taipei authorities only identified the husband by his surname Liu (劉) and the wife by her surname Chang (張).

The married couple was brought in by Taipei police for questioning over suspicions that they were scalping tickets for Chou's Dec. 5 to 8 concerts at the Taipei Dome, which are in extremely high demand.

Following questioning, the police handed over the couple to Taipei prosecutors to follow up on whether to prosecute Liu and Chang for violating Taiwan's Development of the Cultural and Creative Industries Act as well as fraud and document forgery.

Prosecutors allowed Chang to be released on NT$200,000 (US$6,233) bail, but Liu was detained after becoming loud and erratic during questioning.

The Taipei District Court said a hearing is scheduled for later Friday to determine whether or not Liu will be officially detained.

According to Chou's management company and ticketing website tixcraft on Wednesday, 150,000 tickets for the musician's four-day concert sold out within five minutes after going on sale at noon that day.

More than 890,000 fans logged onto tixcraft to vie for the tickets, with most people coming out of the experience empty-handed.

Although 3,000 tickets were later re-released after payment failures and computers flushing out suspicious purchases at 3 p.m. later the same day, there were still around 800,000 people who sought the tickets.

Disgruntled fans who were not able to secure tickets soon found scalped tickets being sold online, with resale prices as high as NT$300,000.

Many of those fans complained about the situation online, prompting Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) to order a crackdown on ticket scalpers.

During their investigation into the problems, Taipei police found a chat group in the popular instant messaging app LINE that was run by Liu and Chang.

The police found the couple to be promoting themselves as Taiwan's largest ticket scalping service and sending out ads over various communications platforms to solicit helpers and tickets to the concerts for them to resell.

The couple was very active online recently reselling Chou concert tickets they were able to acquire, police said, estimating that more than 100 people had used the couple's service for scalped tickets.

Liu has a criminal record for similar offenses in the past, according to Taipei police.

Also Friday, Taiwan's Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) said National Police Agency Director-General Chang Jung-hsin (張榮興) ordered police departments to step up their investigation into ticket scalpers.

Chang Jung-hsin directed police to scrutinize all internet platforms to flush out the likes of bots and other software that may be contributing to fraud.

As of Thursday, the CIB had discovered 31 scalping cases, which included a case in which an individual used a fake identity to procure tickets and a bot ticket-purchasing case.

The other 29 cases involved the more straightforward reselling of tickets at higher prices, the CIB said.

Chou's December concerts will be the first major musical performances by a solo artist at Taipei Dome, which was opened late last year for baseball games.

The concerts are a part of the singer's "Carnival World Tour," which began last October, and will also be Chou's first shows in Taiwan in seven years.