A man in his 30s who used a self-built macro program to snap up dozens of tickets to popular idol concerts within a minute and resold them for up to 13 times face value has been handed over to prosecutors. Police found he mobilized about 1,000 accounts registered under foreigners' names to sell more than 1,700 scalped tickets over roughly a year, netting more than 400 million won ($290,000) in profit.
70 to 80 Tickets Swept Up in a Single Minute
The Ulsan Metropolitan Police Agency said on the 26th that it had detained and referred the man, identified only as A, to prosecutors on the 19th on charges of violating the Public Performance Act and the Information and Communications Network Act.
A is accused of fraudulently purchasing more than 1,700 tickets to concerts by well-known idol groups from three major domestic ticketing sites between November 2024 and October 2025, then reselling them through secondhand trading platforms.
He used 1,198 accounts registered under the names of foreign nationals in the scheme. Police found he had bought each account for 30,000 won through Telegram.
Drawing on computer skills acquired while working in e-commerce, A personally developed the macro program used in the ticket scalping. The program was designed to bypass or disrupt CAPTCHA, the ticketing sites' safeguard against fraudulent purchases, and to complete card payments automatically.
The program did not stop at buying tickets. It also posted sale listings on secondhand trading sites in rapid succession, second by second, automating the entire process from purchase to resale. Police found that A was able to buy and sell 70 to 80 tickets in just one minute using the program.
Resold at Up to 13 Times Face Value for 420 Million Won in Net Profit
A marked up the tickets he obtained by three to as much as 13 times the face value. The most expensive resale was a ticket that changed hands for 2.73 million won, 13 times its original price.
The tickets he distributed over about a year numbered more than 1,700. Excluding his purchasing costs, A's net profit came to about 420 million won, according to police.
Police identified A and arrested him in Seoul after tracing the ticket purchase and sale records and conducting a joint investigation with overseas authorities. During a search of his residence, they seized about 200 million won in cash kept in a safe. They have applied for a pre-indictment preservation order on about 420 million won in criminal proceeds.
The investigation also exposed a gap in the system. After confirming that the macro program automatically handled not only ticket selection but also the card payment stage, police asked the card companies involved to strengthen their approval procedures.
Police are also investigating whether A had accomplices. While tracing the flow of the criminal proceeds, they found that money had been repeatedly deposited to a particular individual and are checking whether that person was involved.
Enforcement against online scalping is also being tightened. Under the revised Public Performance Act, which takes effect on the 28th, reselling admission tickets at a markup for profit will be banned regardless of whether a macro program is used. Violators can face fines of up to 50 times the sale amount.
"Selling scalped tickets online using macro programs is a crime that undermines fairness in the market and deepens cultural inequality," a police official said, adding that enforcement would be stepped up in line with the revised law taking effect.
