Members of a “cybercrime crew” stole more than 900 tickets to the Taylor Swift Eras Tour and other events and then resold them for more $635,000 in illegal profit, New York prosecutors say.
According to prosecutors, the tickets were stolen by two employees at a third-party contractor for StubHub in Jamaica called Sutherland, who then emailed them to New York co-conspirators who resold them for a windfall.
Tyrone Rose, 20, of Jamaica, and Shamara P. Simmons, 31, of Queens, were arrested over the alleged scheme last week on charges of grand larceny, computer tampering and conspiracy, according to a statement Monday by Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz.
“These defendants tried to use the popularity of Taylor Swift’s concert tour and other high-profile events to profit at the [expense] of others,” Katz said. “They allegedly exploited a loophole through an offshore ticket vendor to steal tickets to the biggest concert tour of the last decade and then resold those seats for an extraordinary profit.”
Swift’s Eras Tour wrapped in December with a record-shattering haul of more than $2 billion in face-value ticket sales over a two-year run. The unprecedented demand for the tickets led to a disastrous presale in November 2022 and then created an infamously pricey resale market — much of which was driven by individual fans rather than sophisticated scalpers.
According to prosecutors, Rose and an unnamed accomplice used their positions at Sutherland in Jamaica to access a restricted area of StubHub’s network that’s used to house URLs for event tickets that have already been sold. The pair then allegedly re-directed those tickets to Simmons and another unnamed accomplice, who posted the tickets to StubHub and resold them for profit.
StubHub is not accused of any wrongdoing. In a statement, the company’s chief legal officer, Mark Streams, said that when it uncovered the scheme, it promptly reported it to Sutherland and to law enforcement: “The individuals involved, employees of [Sutherland], exploited a system vulnerability to fraudulently resell tickets,” he said. “They were swiftly identified and terminated.”
Streams said the company had replaced or refunded all affected orders, and had also strengthened its security protocols to avoid future scams. StubHub has also since ended its relationship with Sutherland, the company said.
Sutherland, which is also not accused of any wrongdoing, did not immediately return a request for comment.
Though the “majority” of the stolen tickets were for stops on Swift’s Eras Tour, Rose and Simmons also allegedly stole tickets to Adele and Ed Sheeran concerts, NBA games and the US Open Tennis Championships.
Rose and Simmons were arrested Thursday and charged with grand larceny in the second degree, computer tampering in the first degree, conspiracy in the fourth degree and computer tampering in the fourth degree. Each faces a maximum sentence of three to 15 years in prison if convicted of the top count. The pair could not immediately be reached for comment on Wednesday.