World Figure Skating Championships in Moscow marred by illegal ticket resellers

The tickets to the upcoming 2011 World Figure Skating Championships in Moscow became available for purchase on April 11, but became extremely rare in just a day due to the unprecedented activity from illegal resellers.

According to one of the Russian Livejournal bloggers nicknamed murcilago, the ticket sale in Megasport sports palace has begun later than scheduled and all the cash desks have been taken up by resellers. The latter have resorted to various kinds of fraud in order to circumvent the restriction allowing only up to 4 tickets to be sold to one person. Some of them have been armed with cold weapons and even guns, though according to RIA Novosti local police officers claim to have found no evidence of any illegal activities.

According to unofficial information, average price markup for a ticket from resellers makes around 3 to 3.5 thousand roubles ($100-120), while the Internet cash desks officially entitled to sell the tickets to the World Figure Skating Championships can offer only the cheapest tickets to exhibition performances.