London-based online ticket tout Terance Shepherd is the mastermind of a Beijing Olympics ticketing scam, an Australian private investigator said Wednesday, dpa reported.
Shepherd, 49, had planned "one last massive sting" before retiring to an island in the Caribbean, Ken Gamble told Australia's ABC Radio.
Gamble, who claims Shepherd has been in the illicit business for 20 years and is linked to 150 scamming websites, said the Londoner had made a fortune from Australia's 2003 Rugby World Cup.
"It's the same old story," Gamble said. "People just forget and then they get stung again the following year. It's been a never- ending story."
The site, www.beijingticketing.com, shut down on Monday, just hours before a San Francisco judge issued a restraining order sought by the International Olympic Committee and the United States Olympic Committee. Other website names were also used in the scam.
Hundreds of sports fans from the United States, Australia, New Zealand and other countries reportedly ordered and paid for for tickets at the site, with the damage running into tens of thousands of dollars.
Shepherd operates behind legitimate ticket-selling operations that sell more tickets than they can deliver as well as bogus internet sites that have no tickets to sell at all, Gamble said.
"The story is always the same - it's an 'unfortunate mistake' or someone has 'let them down,'" the sleuth said. "They promise a refund, which never happens, and the credit companies end up paying all the refunds."
Gamble said the site is linked to a business address in Pheonix, Arizona, used by Shepherd.
They include the wife of Australian businessman Greg Bowman, whose company Great Big Events is involved in organizing the medal awards and other sporting ceremonies in Beijing.
"I hate it when people ask me for tickets, so I didn't use my contacts and tried to do it the right way," Bowman told The Australian newspaper.
Kim Bowman bought tickets worth 14,000 Australian dollars (13,000 US dollars) that she said never arrived.