Police said he was arrested with fake tickets for the Rio Games and that some 1,000 tickets have been seized which were to be sold for some 3 million dollars. Another employee of the firm, Barbara Carnieri, was also arrested.
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During the 2014 World Cup, its manager, James Sinton, was arrested at a Rio hotel on charges of illegally reselling tickets through VIP packages.
Brazilian news site G1 reported the company had bought its tickets from another, authorized seller.
Brazilian police said they had detained Kevin James Marlen on Friday and if convicted he could face two years in a Brazilian jail under draconian anti-touting laws.
It stated that it has launched “an immediate investigation with our ATR, Pro10, into how the individuals were allegedly in possession of OCI allocated tickets”.
“The OCI strictly adheres to the IOC [International Olympic Committee] regulations around ticket allocation, sale and re-sale. We are treating this matter with the utmost seriousness”.
Marlen, about whom little is known, was arrested by detectives at a block of serviced apartments near the Olympic Park in the Barra da Tijuca neighbourhood.
In 2012, former footballer Romário, now a Brazilian senator, accused Pat Hickey of being involved in ticket touting for the 2012 Summer Games and the 2014 Winter Games.
Police said they seized more than 1,000 tickets that were being marketed at very high prices for the first Games to be held in South America, which opened on Friday.
Mallon was detained by a court on Friday pending the police investigation.
A spokesman for the organisers of the Games said Brazil had learned from the experience of hosting the World Cup in 2014, with measures in place to tackle this type of crime.
“Because of that we are having much more success”, he said, adding “One of the guarantees is to provide a ticket with a fair price”.
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“I welcome the interim request and order the search and seizure [by police] of his tickets, media, laptops, USB drives, computers, cell phones and any other evidence and objects related to suspected criminal activity”.
