Ringleader claimed criminal plot made thousands of pounds

A TOUT who called himself “Billy Big Balls” while colluding with staff in Liverpool FC's ticket office has been jailed.

- By ADAM EVERETT

Joseph Johnson hatched a fraudulent scheme in which passes for games were resold at “significantly inflated prices” over the course of several years.

This involved the creation of more than 1,000 LFC memberships using fake names and details.

It allowed the criminal syndicate to take tickets which had been specially priced at £9 for fans from the city to attend matches.

They generated profits amounting to hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Yesterday, four of their number were jailed for their part in the plot.

Liverpool Crown Court previously heard that Johnson and his co-defendants Louis James, James Johnson (no relation), Liam Rice and Lee Smith were involved in a sophisticated ticket fraud.

Nicola Daley, prosecuting, said Louis James and James Johnson had worked in the club's ticket office.

In 2018, the club noticed that some of the £9 tickets had been processed and sold before they had been made available to fans. A probe revealed that numerous other tickets in different names had been purchased using the same credit card.

Audits then established that James had “been responsible for processing somewhere between 40 to 50 local general tickets sales per home game”.

Police were called and James was sacked. But in spite of James being caught, jurors were told that “the business developed significantly” from this point and ultimately “extended beyond Liverpool Football Club to the obtaining by dishonest means and then reselling of tickets to matches for other Premier League football clubs”.