Five men sentenced for Liverpool FC ticket scam

Five men have been sentenced for their part in a scam involving tickets for Liverpool Football Club matches.

The men were found to have dishonestly acquired tickets for Liverpool games and sold them at inflated prices using secondary ticket websites, before creating their own called Seatfinder UK.

One of their tactics was selling affordable tickets meant for local fans for anything up to £1,000 – part of an operation which Liverpool Crown Court heard made an estimated amount of between £500,000 and £1m.

Louis James, 37, of Lapford Crescent, Kirkby, who worked at the club’s ticket office, admitted conspiracy to commit fraud and four others admitted the same charge two days into their trial.

Louis James admitted three counts of conspiracy to commit fraud and was sentenced to two years and four months in prison.

James Johnson, 34, who also worked at the ticket office, admitted two counts of conspiracy to commit fraud and was sentenced to 21 months imprisonment, suspended for two years.

He must also do 150 hours of unpaid work and has an electronic curfew for two months.

Joseph Johnson, 42, of Chelford Road, Eccleston, admitted three counts of conspiracy to commit fraud and was sentenced to four and a half years in prison.

Liam Rice, 36, of Roughwood Drive, Kirkby, admitted one count of conspiracy to commit fraud and was sentenced to two years and 10 months in jail.

Lee Smith, 38, of Winmoss Drive, Kirkby, admitted two counts of conspiracy to commit fraud and was sentenced to two years and 10 months in jail.

Joseph Johnson and James Johnson are not related.

Investigators found their company – Seatfinder UK – was registered in Dubai but run from a rented office on a college campus in Kirkby, Merseyside.

The operation first offered tickets for Liverpool matches in 2015, but later expanded to other Premier League clubs.

The court heard the men were able to manipulate the ticket system to buy cheap tickets that should have been reserved for people with Liverpool postcodes.

But some of these £9 tickets were never made available to local fans because the fraudsters bought them before they went on general sale, reselling them for many times their face value.

In 2016 an email from Joseph Johnson, the man described by the prosecution as the “mastermind” of the operation, gave an indication of how much mark-up was placed on what should have been cheap tickets.

He was asking £400 for one ticket for a Manchester United v Liverpool match and £250 for one ticket to an Everton v Liverpool match.

Even after the two ticket office workers were sacked, the fraud continued.

The next method used to obtain tickets involved the creation of hundreds of club memberships using fake names and details.

These allowed the group to get early access to cheap tickets.

Among the false addresses used to obtain memberships were Liverpool Prison and a hotel in Liverpool city centre.

The court heard they created more than 1,000 fake Liverpool membership accounts.

A document found on a computer suggested they also had hundreds more fake membership accounts with Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea, Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur.

The prosecution said the scam did not cause any financial loss to Liverpool FC.

Nicola Daley, prosecuting, said: “The real loss was to genuine fans.

“Tickets meant for local supporters, priced to make games and football accessible to all, were diverted and resold at significantly inflated prices.”

Damian Nolan, defending Louis James, said Liverpool FC could not claim reputational damage from the fraud “because senior players in the first team squad were equally active in this market as anyone and that was happening right under the club’s nose.”

Mr Nolan said: “Liverpool cannot claim to be damaged here because they tolerated the same behaviour from players and staff.

“The club want to control the secondary ticket market – that’s what this case is about.”

Senior District Crown Prosecutor Jonathan Egan of CPS Mersey Cheshire said: “These defendants worked together to obtain huge numbers of Liverpool Football Club tickets meant for those living locally or genuine football club members, to make huge profits by reselling them at vastly inflated prices.

“Their so-called ‘business’ grew and grew and went from being the equivalent of a market stall to a multi-million pound enterprise, with a base in Dubai.

“Even after Louis James and James Johnson lost their jobs in the LFC ticket office, the scam continued but their greed caught up with them in the end and their fraud came to light.”

He added: “Most of them refused to accept their culpability, even after arrest and charge and, apart from Louis James, claimed they didn’t know the tickets were being sold at a profit.

“They have now been sentenced and have jail terms to contend with. They all have criminal records as fraudsters.”