Dutch police sell fake tickets to show how easily scams work

The Dutch police ran an unusual sting by setting up a fake ticket website, TicketBewust[.]nl, that sold tickets for events like football matches and concerns, which were never real. The site was designed to show how easily ticket fraud can work, and anyone who proceeded to buy a ticket was led to a police webpage explaining they had interacted with a fake online shop, with the Netherlands’ National Police collaborating with the Fraud Helpdesk and online marketplace Marktplaats to promote the ads.

The campaign drew substantial online attention: more than 300,000 people saw the police ads on Marktplaats between 30 October 2025 and 11 January 2026, over 30,000 opened the ad, 7,402 clicked the link to the fake site, and 3,432 attempted to order tickets. The piece notes that roughly 1% of those who saw the ad took the bait, illustrating that online crime operates like ecommerce, where a small fraction can still be lucrative. According to data from the Better Business Bureau, fake ticket sellers raked in an average of $672 per victim in the US between 2020 and 2024.