CTS Eventim, German Football Association Offices Raided For Second Time in World Cup Ticketing Investigation
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The offices of one of the Europe’s biggest concert promoters and ticket companies, CTS Eventim in Bremen, as well as the private house of CTS Eventim’s CEO, Klaus Peter Schulenberg, and the offices of the German Football Association (DFB) in Frankfurt have been raided for the second time by the German prosecution offices and the police. The investigations began two years ago in September 2010 and led to the first raids of the offices of CTS and the DFB. The charges are alleged bribery in connection with the ticket sales for the 2006 World Cup in Germany.
According to the German daily tabloid Bild, the Munich-based state attorney, Thomas Steinkraus-Koch, who started the proceedings against CTS and the DFB, confirmed on June 19th that they seized a lot of material that will take months to evaluate because the computer and IT capacities of the prosecutors are not sufficient. “We also need economic specialists,” he said.
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The prosecution office researched whether and how tickets from sponsor contingents went to the ticket market with an enormous price increase and who did the dealing. According to the German newspaper Bild in Hamburg CTS Eventim gave out about 50,000 tickets that reached a profit of about 12 million euro, an average extra charge of over 300 percent. According to Bild the monies then went back to the Bremen-located company and its partners via faked consultant agreements. Because of the ongoing investigation, CTS Eventim and DFB are not willing to comment.
In 2010 CTS Eventim also ran the ticketing for the women’s World Cup 2010 in Germany.
In 2004, former employee Willy Behr moved from CTS Eventim subsidiary GSO to the organization committee of the 2006 World Cup as head of DFB ticketing. The prosecution office is presently investigating whether Eventim got advantages in the ticket business and whether it received the ticketing contract via bribes.
Bild reports that according to Steinkraus Koch CTS, his CEO Schulenberg and Willy Behr are suspected of illegally selling tickets for the World Cup finals. Bild also pointed out that the managing director of O&P Event Marketing GmbH, the company that allegedly sold the tickets to the black market, Christa Nesnidal was once a member of the CTS supervisory board. The state attorney in Munich was not willing to comment on any further details. Steinkraus-Koch already investigated several German insider trading scandals.
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