OSAKA--A 24-year-old woman who scalped Arashi concert tickets because she wanted to travel around and see the all-male idol group herself is the first person to be charged under a new law prohibiting ticket scalping.

The woman, a nursery teacher in Sapporo, scalped electronic tickets for concerts and events of Arashi, who will go on hiatus at the end of 2020, according to the Osaka prefectural police’s cybercrime project division.

She resold them to three women during the period from June to September.

Reselling the tickets was prohibited under the new law. But the woman solicited buyers on social networking sites, and sold tickets originally priced at 5,000 yen ($46) and 9,000 yen for four people to three female buyers in Shizuoka, Tokushima and Mie prefectures.

The tickets were sold for about eight to 15 times more than the purchase price.

The woman made a total of 423,000 yen from the illegal sales. For example, she sold a 9,000-yen ticket for 133,000 yen.

The woman has admitted to the charges.

“I wanted to attend every Arashi concert before they go on hiatus, and I needed money to cover the travel costs,” she said, according to the police.

The woman originally bought these tickets from a third party through social networking sites, then resold them repeatedly on those sites at higher prices.

Police have analyzed data from her smartphone and found that she scalped tickets for 10 events including Arashi concerts for 17 people and eked out a total of 905,000 yen from January to September.

Under the new law, tickets that come with a date, time, venue and seat and are tied to the buyer's information such as name and phone number cannot be resold at a higher price without permission from the event organizer.

Subsequently, event organizers have begun asking ticket holders to show either a picture ID or multiple IDs without a picture upon entering a venue.

Police said the Sapporo woman attended an Arashi event in Tokyo in June with a ticket she bought from a scalper. To slip through the ID check at the entrance, she showed a counterfeit employee ID card with her picture and the name of the scalper who obtained the ticket through official channels.

Police have also charged her with forging and using sealed private documents. Under the new anti-ticket scalping law, violators could face a 1-million yen ($9,100) fine and a one-year jail term, or both.

FAKE ID PROVIDED

The Sapporo woman’s case is just the tip of the iceberg.

Even after about four months since the law took effect, there are still many concert and sports tickets posted for sale on social networking sites.

For example, an account identified as belonging to a woman in her 20s who has sold tickets before showed a message that says she has three Arashi concert tickets that were sold exclusively for the idol groups’ fan club members.

The regular price for one of the three tickets was 9,000 yen. But the scalper wanted 120,000 yen for a “prompt decision,” or “negotiable for 80,000 yen or more.”

The message provides instructions on how to pass through the security check, which includes an offer to lend a fan club membership card. The scalper also offers to make a forged driver’s license and student ID if buyers send a picture of their face.

Such transactions have often been made through flea market apps.

Police have seen a case in which a scalper posted a ticket for sale in a listing under a home electronics category. After the payment was confirmed, the scalper sent the buyer an ID and password to log in a fan club’s member site and view the ticket on “My Page.”

To find buyers who will more easily pass through the ID check at the entrance, many scalpers screen by gender and age group.

“Will help with ID confirmation. Only 18-28 years old, please,” one scalper posted. “I will lend you an ID, but we need to enter together.”

Another scalper wrote, “I’m looking for a female buyer in her 30s.”

Kensaku Fukui, a lawyer specializing in ticket scalping, said that operators of flea market apps and resale sites have taken measures against illegal scalping, and the number of high-priced transactions has decreased.

On the other hand, scalpers have moved their focus to social networking sites and international ticket resale sites.

“Countermeasures against operators of social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook and resale sites abroad are needed,” Fukui said.

(This article was written by Yu Fujinami and Moeno Kunikata.)