The World Hockey Championship is being attacked by scammers. The number of victims is in the hundreds!

The World Hockey Championship had barely even begun before a loud scandal with criminal overtones broke out. Hundreds of ice battle fans in the Czech Republic suddenly became victims of scammers.

“They are doing everything to track down the criminals”

The tournament in the Czech Republic aroused quite high interest in the hockey community. For many matches, even of very modest national teams, it is difficult to get tickets at an affordable price. Because of this, fans often prefer to follow the progress of their favorite teams in fan zones.

But for those who definitely want to be at the ice arenas in Prague and Ostrava, local scammers have prepared an unpleasant surprise. Already on the first day of the competition, fans were faced with massive deception when purchasing tickets from resellers. Only after the first day of the competition, the Czech police officially announced dozens of victims.

— In Prague, during the first match, we noticed more than 40 people with fake tickets. On-site cybercrime specialists immediately deal with cases and do everything to track down the criminals who deceived them, Czech police said in a post on social networks.

Law enforcement agencies even drove a special police truck to the arena in Prague to receive statements from victims, as well as to collect evidence and catch the perpetrators.

“We don’t know what to do”

The Czech press is now awash with stories of upset victims. Thus, the publication iDNES.cz spoke about a family of four who were stopped in full force right at the entrance to the arena.

– We don’t know what to do. At the entrance we were informed that we had fake tickets. Now we need to go and deal with the police,” iDNES.cz quotes the words of the head of the affected family.

The main scheme of deception is the sale of tickets via the Internet on scam sites. The resulting QR codes lead you nowhere. Victims were asked to visit a dental clinic or make a purchase at a shopping mall. The greatest recorded damage was 40 thousand crowns (158 thousand rubles). The woman bought tickets from scammers for several matches at once, and they all turned out to be fake.

For many victims, missing the World Cup was a real tragedy. Some couldn’t hold back their tears, while others were simply furious.

“Families with small children came here, and now the children are crying. One boy received a ticket as a birthday present, and for him it was just a terrible tragedy. We are trying to help these people at least a little on the spot and at the same time, of course, we immediately begin to find out where they got their tickets from and try to prevent this criminal activity,” Seznam Zprávy quotes police spokeswoman Eva Kropachova as saying.

According to law enforcement agencies, the number of victims is already in the hundreds, and yet the tournament has only just begun. However, not all victims of scammers turned to the police. The total damage for the first day of the tournament alone is estimated at around 400 thousand crowns (1.58 million rubles).

Watch live broadcasts of the World Hockey Championship matches on the TV channels of the Match group, as well as on the websites matchtv.ru and sportbox.ru.