They came here from Atlanta, police said, to make money selling fake tickets to Saturday night’s sold-out Buccaneers game.
And it almost worked for them and, surprisingly, even for some of the people who bought the counterfeit tickets.
Authorities arrested four men Saturday night at or nearby Raymond James Stadium in connection with the counterfeit ticket operation.
Three of the men — Albert Carlos Ford II, 30; Tony Denario Davis, 26; Oterious Lamar Wims, 26 — came from Atlanta, rented a white van and a white Chevrolet Tahoe, and sold “approximately 211 high-quality counterfeit tickets” to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers game against the Dallas Cowboys at an average of $100 each, Tampa police said.
A fourth man — Trevor M. Hendricks, 25 — was arrested by the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office after he bought fake tickets from the others, later realized they were not real and then tried to sell them to someone else, according to police.
After getting complaints from people who unwittingly bought the fake tickets, two Tampa police officers went undercover to pose as fans looking to get into the game.
Officers then arrested Ford and Davis at the stadium, according to jail records and an incident report. The men had 14 fake tickets between them.
Police then found Wims nearby in one of the rental vehicles with four more counterfeit tickets.
Hendricks of St. Augustine was trying to re-sell four fake tickets he bought from the men, police said.
The Buccaneers ticket office recovered 184 counterfeit tickets, according to the report, and many people were turned away from the game.
Some people actually got into the stadium with the fake tickets, however, because the ticket-takers at Gate A didn’t scan the tickets as is the usual process, according to police — they just tore the stubs.
The four men each face a charge of possessing or selling a counterfeit private label. Each was released from jail on $500 bail, jail records show.
Source: St. Petersburg Times
