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Since March 2023, gendarmerie cyber patrols have been organized to identify fraudulent sales or resale sites.
A few weeks before the launch of the Paris 2024 Games, the cyber-gendarmerie is called upon more than ever to fight against attempts at fraud in the sale or resale of tickets online. This is Franceinfo information: since the start of cyber patrols in March 2023, 338 fraudulent sites have been identified, of which 51 have been closed and 140 have been put on notice.
The unit, set up specifically to combat ticketing fraud for the Olympic Games, has 200 gendarmes mobilized to carry out research on the internet and on social networks. These cyber patrols are carried out under the control of Europol.
Captain Etienne Lestrelin is director of operations: “The gendarmes carry out various searches on all French and foreign search engines to detect sites which sell and resell unauthorized tickets. The goal is to hunt down and identify these sites.” The largest majority are sites hosted abroad, the director of operations tells franceinfo: “They know that the steps are longer and less easy to bring an action to close or withdraw the site.”
“The only site on which you can purchase tickets is the official Paris 2024 website.”
Captain Etienne Lestrelinat franceinfo
Among the fraudulent sites identified, some are “amateur sites” observes the gendarme. “Scammer sites which aim to capture personal data. They will try to catch your email and your phone by telling you that they will contact you as soon as there are tickets available. They will tell you that They found the exceptional 100m place three meters from the track… which doesn’t exist!”
Other sites already existed before the current Olympic period (concert ticket sales sites for example), but resell tickets even though they are not authorized to do so. “In this case, we fall within the framework of formal notices, that is to say they are assigned to stop this sale”reports Captain Etienne Lestrelin.
But illicit resale obviously also happens through social networks: Facebook, Lebonboin, Telegram, Instagram. It’s even “the primary source of resale attempts”testifies Captain Etienne Lestrelin. “This is an exchange from individual to individual, he explains. Except that the buyer does not know if the person actually owns the tickets, since they are virtual tickets, not paper tickets. So people are selling you wind, we don’t know what they’re selling.”
Some honest individuals try to resell their place without going through the official platform. Although it is prohibited, tolerance is granted up to a certain threshold: “We decided that from the moment people sell tickets on a regular basis, we request intervention and the closure of the account. This is what we can call a second market, the black market. From the moment we have a notion of volumes, there is an intervention to stop sales.”
To spot a fraudulent sale, Captain Lestrelin believes that a price that is too low can alert the buyer: “You will never have a ticket below its original cost. The goal of people who were able to buy tickets in volume and with the intention of reselling them is to make a profit. So it is an alert if you find a much cheaper ticket. The sentence to remember is that there are no very good deals on the internet, it’s not possible.
Another potential alert: if the seller assures to provide you with a ticket now: “Currently, no one can have a ticket. It will only exist before the event when the QR Code is generated. So someone who currently has a ticket, even if visually it looks like a ticket, it’s a fake, a scam.” Vigilance is all the more important because by bypassing official channels, the buyer also commits a violation: “You are associating yourself with the offense that the seller commits when he resells without going through the official website. It is a criminal offense.”
To ensure that the purchase made is valid, “the first step is to go to the official application, advises Captain Lestrelin. With the references given to you, you can check whether the ticket exists and whether it was actually transferred to you.” If the buyer realizes that they have been duped, it is essential to make a report to a police station, a gendarmerie or directly to the DGCCRF, the General Directorate for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Prevention.
Since the opening of the resale platform in May 2024, the cyber-gendarmerie has noted more and more fraudulent sales and resale attempts. “The impact is enormouswarns Captain Etienne Lestrelin. You potentially have people who will think they have the ticket, come to an event and be rejected because the QR code will not be the right one.”
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Until the Games and during the Games, the unit will remain active and the work will continue afterwards with investigations and legal inquiries. An active partnership is engaged with the DGCCRF to cross-reference the information, data and identified sites. Follow-up will also be carried out with the Olympic Committee to question potential buyers duped and blocked at the entrance to the events and trace back to the sellers.
Paris 2024 and the national gendarmerie remind us that the first reflex to have is to go through official channels. “For the first time in the history of the Games, 100% digital ticketing allows unified management” of sales, points out to Franceinfo the Cojop communications department, which reminds that the list of approved sub-distributors can be consulted at this address. An awareness campaign was also presented in video with French Olympic athletes speaking. In total, 13 million tickets will be on sale, Olympic and Paralympic Games combined.