The Halton Regional Police Service (HRPS) is investigating a series of ticket frauds for Taylor Swift's ongoing six-night Eras Tour run in Toronto.
UPDATE (11/18, 3:26 p.m. ET): As per CBC, scam victim Melinda Tarantino spent over $3,000 on tickets for her and her two daughters, nine and 11, to see Swift this weekend. She had purchased last month from someone a friend had connected her with, who had appeared to be a local woman.
When she found out last week that the tickets likely weren't real, Tarantino created an online form for other victims to collect their experiences and share information with the local authorities. She told the outlet that over the past few days, she's heard from nearly 160 people who were under the impression they had purchased a total of 420 Eras Tour tickets from a person who used the same name.
As CityNews Toronto reports, police began receiving complaints last Thursday (November 14) — the first night of the pop star's Rogers Centre concerts — from customers about tickets they had purchased not being delivered, amounting to approximately 40 reports of fake or nonexistent tickets sold by the same vendor.
The estimated value for the fraudulent Eras Tour tickets is $70,000, HRPS said. They added that their Financial Crimes Unit continues to investigate, and that no arrests have been made as of yet.
Possibly not coincidentally, Peel Regional Police (PRP) identified a suspect accused of selling fraudulent tickets to music and sporting events in the GTA last week. An arrest warrant was issued for Jaspal Singh Thiara, 37, whom a PRP spokesperson warned may be still actively seeking additional victims in his fraud scheme amid Swift's hot-ticket residency, which continues through November 23.