A California man has been handed a two-year prison sentence for a nationwide ticket scam that caught Texas A&M University in its web, U.S. Attorney Alamdar S. Hamdani revealed. Derrick Langford, 49, of Los Angeles, will also face a year of supervised release following his time behind bars.
Langford, who pleaded guilty last August, was part of a long-running swindle that duped numerous identity theft victims and online buyers, according to justice.gov. "For years, Langford engaged in a multi-level fraud," said Hamdani. Venues from football stadiums to music arenas ultimately shouldered the financial losses emanating from his scheme.
The scammer's tactics included the use of stolen credit card information to purchase tickets for events, which he then sold on sites like Ticket Liquidator. The deceit extended to a much-anticipated Texas A&M football game against Clemson on September 8, 2018, where Langford admitted to creating fake buyer accounts to buy and resell tickets using pilfered credit card numbers.
His fraudulent activities finally came to a head thanks to the vigilance of the 12th Man Foundation at Texas A&M University. While the university tried to mitigate damages by invalidating the tickets, this move unfortunately came too late for certain unsuspecting buyers. Texas A&M was left to absorb a 100% loss on the fraudulent tickets.
Over the course of his operation, investigators found that Langford had pilfered the credit card information and personal details of more than 75 individuals. Langford, who had been on bond, is set to voluntarily surrender to a U.S. Bureau of Prisons facility that will be determined shortly. The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Quincy Ollison and Belinda Beek, with investigative assistance from the FBI and the Texas A&M University Police Department.
