A Moscow court has convicted four defendants in a fraud case who resold tickets on behalf of the country’s largest and most famous theatres, the press service of the Russian Investigative Committee reported.
The convicts were found guilty under paragraph 4 of article 159, part 4 of article 180 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (fraud, illegal use of means of identifying property). In total, six people were involved in the criminal case.
The investigation and the court established that members of the criminal group created twin websites of major Russian cultural institutions in February 2017.
“These include the Mariinsky, Bolshoi and Maly theatres, the Theatre of Nations, the Russian Academic Youth Theatre (RAMT), the P.I. Tchaikovsky Conservatory, the Spasskaya Tower International Military Music Festival. All these cultural institutions suffered large-scale material damage in the form of illegal use of trademarks for a total amount of more than 9 million rubles.” – says the message.
Using their resources, the fraudsters sold tickets to events of institutions using their trademarks and similar designations at inflated prices. The funds received were transferred to the settlement accounts of controlled organizations registered in the name of nominal managers, and then withdrawn into cash circulation and distributed among members of the criminal group.
“More than 150 people were involved in illegal activities. These include IT specialists, call-center employees, ticket sellers, couriers, programmers, advertising managers and system administrators. For confidentiality purposes, domain name operators were foreign companies and communication with ticket buyers was carried out via Internet telephony. Tickets were sold through call centers located in Moscow and Vladimir. The operation of the sites through which illegal ticket sales were carried out has been stopped,” — the department clarified.
To secure compensation for damages, the defendants’ property, cars and bank accounts were confiscated. Civil claims filed against the accused victims were satisfied by the court.
The court sentenced the two defendants to 7 years and 6 months and 4 years and 6 months in prison with fines of 800 and 600 thousand rubles. Two more defendants received suspended sentences. Two defendants, mother and son, were included in the international wanted list and arrested in absentia.
As reported EADailyAfter another scandal over a shortage of tickets for the most important New Year’s performance, Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s ballet “The Nutcracker”, the Bolshoi Theatre (SABT) responded to the scalpers by raising prices. A source at the theatre explained directly to the newspaper Izvestia that the Bolshoi does not want to “waste money” – if people are willing to pay 300,000 for “The Nutcracker”, then the theatre must attract that spectator to its side.
Since the beginning of this year, the price of tickets has doubled considerably. Now, a seat in the stalls of almost any of the Bolshoi’s performances will cost a spectator 50 thousand rubles.
