Ticket tout targeted Arab Liverpool fans in scam

A ticket tout who targeted Liverpool FC fans from the Middle East has been banned from games for three years.

Abdelmohaimen Mohamed, from Manchester, was spotted on CCTV "meeting and greeting" punters on Paisley Square in Liverpool, Merseyside Police said.

The 33-year-old was initially caught trying to sell tickets to a couple from Seattle in the United States before Liverpool's match with Arsenal in August.

He admitted "selling/disposing of a ticket for a designated football match – otherwise known as ticket touting" at Sefton Magistrates Court.

Police said when he was arrested he was found with four mobile telephones, all of which contained matchday tickets.

Some of them were numbered, which "suggested he was involved in commercial-scale ticket touting", the force said.

A spokesman added he appeared to be part of a syndicate of touts offering tickets to people from Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

Ch Insp Stuart McLoughlin said: "Mohamed was operating a commercial-scale operation of selling illegitimate tickets where he would having multiple tickets across multiple phones which enabled him to scan customers into the game.

"Further enquiries discovered that he targeted Liverpool fans in Egypt and Saudi Arabia with the fake tickets.

"This ban prevents Mohamed from attending any football game in the country."

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