New Zealanders are among thousands of victims of a $50m internet Olympic ticketing scam. Photo / Glenn Jeffrey
New Zealanders are among thousands of victims of a $50m internet Olympic ticketing scam. Photo / Glenn Jeffrey
KEY POINTS:
An Australian private investigator claims a South London conman, Terance Shepherd, 49, is behind the Olympics ticket scam which has ripped off families from New Zealand and overseas.
Mr Gamble told the ABC that Shepherd had spent two decades defrauding people through fake ticket scams, and he hadprovided a dossier on the fraudster to British authorities in the past.
"This guy has just been at it for so long, it is unbelievable," Mr Gamble said.
"We knew he was going to do the Olympic scam 12 months ago. We had an informant that came forward and told us that Terry Shepherd and his group are going to do a massive big scam at the Beijing Olympics."
New Zealanders are among thousands of victims worldwide of the $50 million internet Olympic ticket scam, including aspiring Christchurch equestrian Melissa Thomson and her family, and the parents of Beijing BMX gold medal hopeful Sarah Walker.
Sue and Graham Walker, of Kawerau, missed out on tickets from the New Zealand Olympic Committee's official ticket agent Premier Events Asia Pacific, and instead paid beijingticketing.com almost $4000 for five tickets to the BMX event and two tickets to three volleyball matches and the closing ceremony.
Mr Gamble said he wrote to the police in London and other British authorities, warning them about what Shepherd was planning.
"We (also) did a story with Tonight with Trevor McDonald on ITV. I was actually interviewed on that show about this whole ticket scamming business," Mr Gamble said.
"It's the same old story, people just forget and then they get stung again the following year. It has just been a never-ending story."
Mr Gamble said Shepherd had owned hundreds of ticket websites over that time, and a large amount of those websites were registered to a fake company in Phoenix, Arizona - the same one used in the Beijing Olympics scam.
Despite sporting bodies in Australia and Europe being aware of such online scams, they could not seem to stop people like Shepherd from operating them, he said.
"He is very shrewd the way he does this.
"He has got other people operating these companies. He puts front people up that basically take the fall and he walks away with all the money.
"So, you know, he has got himself at arm's length to a lot of these websites."
