Bay Area Man Charged in Ticket-Hacking Scam

An Alameda man might have bought himself a ticket to the slammer by becoming involved in an alleged multimillion-dollar hacking ring.

Joel Stevenson, 37, of Alameda, surrendered at FBI headquarters in Newark Monday. Prosecutors say he was among four men who fraudulently obtained more than a million tickets.

Federal prosecutors in New Jersey say Stevenson and three Los Angeles men made more than $25 million reselling tickets to concerts and sporting events they acquired by hacking into Ticketmaster.com and other Web sites.

Authorities in Newark also charged 40-year-old Kenneth Lowson, 37-year-old Kristofer Kirsch, 36-year-old Faisal Nahdi on Monday.

The indictment charges the men with multiple wire fraud counts and gaining unauthorized access to computer systems. The four allegedly sold tickets to shows by Bruce Springsteen, Barbara Streisand, Hannah Montana, and other concerts and live theater shows.

Prosecutors say the suspects' company, Wiseguy Tickets, allegedly devised computer programs that impersonated individual ticket buyers to bombard ticket Web sites. The programs were able to bypass safeguards meant to restrict the number of tickets each customer can buy.

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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