Police: Ticket scalping ring hoping to get $16,000 per final ticket
A police investigator says a ticket scalping ring believed to be reselling World Cup tickets was hoping to get 35,000 Brazilian reals ($16,000) per ticket if Brazil reached the July 13 final.
Inspector Fabio Barucke, who heads the investigation, says Thursday that 11 people were arrested, including the believed ringleader Mohamadou Lamine Fofana of Algeria. More arrests are possible.
Reselling tickets above face value is illegal in Brazil. Barucke says many tickets are believed to have come from FIFA sponsors, or from hospitality packages.
He said the source of some of the tickets in this case was a FIFA official staying at the Copacabana Hotel in Rio. Barucke did not give a name but said ''it's clear that it's someone with lots of influence'' inside the governing body of football.
