Russian Pleads Guilty In U.S. Court To Ticket-Hacking Scam

A Russian man charged with leading a computer-hacking gang that fraudulently bought more than $1 million worth of sports, music, and theater tickets has pleaded guilty in a U.S. federal court to being a member of the criminal group.

Vadim Polyakov entered his guilty plea on June 20, admitting he was part of a international hacking group that broke into the accounts of people using the StubHub ticket-purchasing service.

He pleaded guilty to charges of money laundering and possessing stolen property.

Prosecutors say the group hacked into private accounts of the StubHub service and used credit-card numbers of unsuspecting account holders to buy sought-after tickets.

Prosecutors say the group would resell the fraudulently bought tickets for as much as $1,000 each.

They said the scheme involved more than 1,000 StubHub accounts and 3,500 tickets valued at about $1.6 million.

Based on reporting by AP and TASS