Denounce, the main weapon against resale in concerts: Cyber Police

Fabiola and Gerardo had little money to go to one of their favorite festivals, but they didn't want to miss the shows of great national and international artists, so they started searching for a couple of tickets online, hopefully they found some at a low price.

Recently, there have been numerous cases of ticket offers on social networks, especially Facebook, Twitter and Instagram that can promise benefits such as prices equal to pre-sale prices, and even lower as the date on which the concert will take place in turn approaches.

However, they could be cybercriminals who make a sale without any kind of security, with deposits involved or other tricks to obtain money and then disappear or send their victims fake tickets that reach the gates of the precincts to be finally rejected.

This technique of impersonating secure and official pages for the purchase of tickets is labeled by the Cyber Police of the Ministry of Citizen Security of Mexico City as Phishing, and has numerous alerts from the authorities.

“On Facebook we found a lot of people offering their cheapest tickets, and we said that maybe it was an option because they are people who are no longer going. We set out to start this adventure,” the couple told Infobae Mexico about their case.

The woman on the other end of the messages promised them that the tickets were hers and her boyfriend's, but neither of them would show up at the concert, so they were looking for someone else to enjoy that benefit. When they arrived at the appointment, they reviewed the tickets that were delivered by another person outside the negotiations, in a hurry and with the cover face down. When I reviewed them, they were a simple cardboard.

At that time, Fabiola and Gerardo realized that everything was a perfectly orchestrated plan to commit fraud. The woman who did all the negotiation eventually blocked them, deleted the conversations and never heard about their physical existence again or on social media.

It is not the only case that has echoed in Mexico City in recent months. Coldplay concerts, for example, were in great demand, to the extent that the British had four dates in the Mexican capital, one more in Guadalajara and one more in Monterrey.

However, on TikTok dozens of people reported the frauds they were part of while trying to get a ticket to enter. From shopping on Facebook, outside the venue, through applications, online platforms, WhatsApp and much more. The scams reached figures of thousands of pesos, and users were unable to enter the concert.

In Mexico City, police reported the arrest of 11 people who possibly offered tickets at costs other than those announced on platforms authorized for sale. A total of 6 men and 5 women were brought before the Civic Judge to determine their sanction.

Days earlier, on the occasion of events such as Vive Latino or Foo Fighters in Mexico City, authorities launched a cyber alert so that users were careful when purchasing their tickets through social networks, and made a series of recommendations to try to have as safe an experience as possible.

But if you became the victim of fraud with your tickets, then the most important thing of all, according to the second policeman Eduardo Portillo of the SSC-CDMX Cyber Police, is to file a complaint so that the authorities can act quickly, and manage to cybernetically and physically inhibit the person or persons dedicated to fraud

Officer Portillo revealed in an interview with Infobae Mexico that to prevent this type of crime, it is essential to stick to secure purchases, make digital queues, buy on official websites or access paid platforms such as MercadoPago or Paypal where your money has insurance.

“These tickets are searched for through social networks, and Facebook or Instagram are not marketing pages, there cybercriminals create fake profiles to offer these tickets,” he warned citizens.

As these pages are not controlled, once the money is deposited, people proceed to use the blocks so that bad comments cannot be written, and other users are not alerted.

But they are also aware that cybercriminals can stand in digital queues and access tickets like a normal person, however, fraud comes when they use those resources to make a large purchase and then bid tickets through unauthorized pages.

If you don't have tickets once the sale is over, and you want to access another page, application or platform where they offer tickets, then you can rely on the National Commission for the Protection and Defense of Financial Services Users (Condusef) or Cyber Police alerts.

In the first, you'll find pages that are 100 percent secure, while in the second you'll have access to various alerts from sites that could be fake or that were identified as fraudulent.

It is important to remember that the CDMX Cyber Police unit has monitoring and patrolling 24 hours a day, 7 days a week where activities such as Phishing are detected.

However, according to the second officer Eduardo Portillo for Infobae Mexico, the citizen is guaranteed that, at the time of going to the authorities, it will take approximately 24 hours to download the content from the internet and start the corresponding investigation.

“The culture of reporting is very important, if they don't, we can't learn about this type of fraud,” Portillo warned.

The formal complaint must be made to the Attorney General's Office of Mexico City, where they will open the investigation folder and begin tracing the culprits. You must come with the material you have at hand, from names, https addresses, screenshots, conversations, among others that could serve as evidence of the crime.

Their job is to identify IP addresses, physical address, who entered the account, if it is still active, if they continue to operate it, so that there is a physical arrest, otherwise they can continue to scam with as many profiles as they want.

“Fake pages and profiles don't limit you, they're totally free if you have access to the internet. It is important for research, to find a natural person,” he told Infobae Mexico.

Finally, he reminded the public that this type of cybercrime is traceable, so they should not give up if they see the content lost, are blocked or the account could seem disabled because “they are not deleted at the root”.

“Remember that these profiles are not deleted at the root. You can disable it, but not delete it at the root, it is registered. We contact the administrators, we can make requests to Facebook or Instagram for these accounts so that they can send us the information,” the official insisted.

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