Before the game against the University of Louisville, Carolina Athletics put out a statement warning fans who were buying general admission tickets from third-party sources to be wary of the authenticity of their tickets.
“Typically it happens every year, for the Duke game we get some counterfeits but we hadn’t had any problems at the other games,” Gerry Lajoie, the assistant director of ticket operations, said. “The first time we saw it this season was at the Virginia game where we confiscated about 20 tickets.”
He said the ticketing office was able to tell that tickets for the game against the University of Virginia were fake because some of the tickets mentioned locations that do not even exist in the Smith Center.
While the ticketing office may be able to tell that tickets are counterfeit, fans purchasing them outside the stadium will not be able to in most cases.
“There aren’t any obvious markers because there are different forms of tickets — there are printed-at-home templates, hard copy tickets, season tickets,” Lajoie said. “Basically if it wasn’t from the UNC Ticket Office or it wasn’t from StubHub you are taking a risk.”
After the incidents at the Virginia men’s basketball game, Carrboro police were alerted, and they started an investigation.
On Feb. 23, Carrboro police arrested and charged Adam Sanchez, 25, with Attempt to Obtain Property by False Pretense and Criminal Use of Counterfeit Trademark. According to a Carrboro Police Department press release Sanchez had numerous counterfeit tickets for the UNC v. Duke game in his possession when he was arrested.
Capt. Chris Atack of the Carrboro Police Department said the police became interested in Sanchez when an investigator noticed a suspicious Craigslist post about selling tickets for the game.
