Tickets for the general public are yet to go on sale, but already the UK officials have cranked down on 100+ fake websites and are trying to send a strong warning to ticket touts. At Spyns, we are talking with official ticket distributers in all four corners for the world to ensure our Olympic Games clients get not only original tickets, but get seats in one of the 30 different venues in use.
Ticket touts were warned today they could be issued with ASBOs banning them from 2012 Olympic venues, police said today.
Scotland Yard warned it was planning to use a range of tactics against touts and fraudsters planning to cash in on the multi-million pound Olympic economy next year.
Police have launched a specialist fraud unit called Operation Podium to disrupt organised crime gangs plotting to target the 2012 Games. So far 37 people have been arrested and the unit has 16 ongoing operations targeting organised ticket crime.
Detective Chief Inspector Nick Downing, who leads the squad, said: "We believe that touts who are targeting events like Glastonbury and the FA Cup will also be targeting 2012 and our strategy is to send a message to them that we are coming after them with every tactic we possess.
"We will consider using ASBOs to ban ticket touts from all Olympic venues and we are also using the Proceeds of Crime Act to take poelpe's money off them. If we cannot prosecute touts for an offence we will go after them and disrupt them in other ways. We want to make it a very challenging environment for fraudsters and touts."
So far, police have run 10 operations against organised gangs involved in money laundering, e-crime, fraud and bespoke ticketing crime.
The unit's priority is preventing fraud around the launch of the Olympic ticket sales next month.
Some 8.8 million Olympic tickets worth £500million will go on the market, with three quarters of them being sold to the public.
Police fear criminals may try and launch false websites and manufacture counterfeit tickets.
The squad disrupted one Wolverhampton crime gang which was planning to flood the Olympic economy with counterfeit cheques.
So far many of the scams are not directly related to the Olympics but police say there is increasing intelligence that crime groups intend to target the 2012 Games.
Last month it emerged that more than 100 websites posing as ticket suppliers for the London Olympics had been shut down.
In another case, detectives uncovered a ring of fraudsters targeting suppliers of high cost goods, including champagne and laptops.
The gang claimed to be arranging corporate hospitality events and ordered luxury goods from suppliers and requested delivery to the address of a "virtual office."
Arrangements were made at the office for the goods to be signed for, by the reception staff, on delivery. They were then immediately collected by courier.
Spyns is an active travel company based in Whistler, BC (Canada). For more information about Spyns and our package tours to the 2012 London Summer Olympic Games, including London Olympics hotels, London 2012 tickets, and summer games VIP access, please visit our websites http://www.london-olympiad.com/ http://www.london2012-tours.com/ and http://www.london-tours-2012.com/ or call us toll-free at 1.888.825.4720. http://www.spyns.com/
