TOPSFIELD Chief Neal Hovey (TPD) received a report from General Manager James O’brien of the topsfield fair, on fraudulent fair tickets being sold online. 31 year old Detective Sgt. Brendan Gahagan (TPD) took it upon himself to investigate the issue.
After receiving the reports, the Topsfield Police Department issued a warning to the public “when general manager O’Brien let us know that’s when we put out the awareness” said Gahagan. Despite Gahagan not receiving the report directly “we never received one report here, so there was nothing for us to really investigate because we never got it. There was no victim reported to us” said Gahagan, he took it upon himself to dig deeper into the issue. The website Ticketscenter.com sells fraudulent “tickets” to events in the Boston area “you could buy tickets for any concert really any event in the Boston area Massachusetts” said Gahagan “here was literally tickets for everything”. In the case of the fair, they were selling separate “tickets” to arena events. The fair does not and never has required separate tickets for these events.” if you went to Topsfield fair they had all these tickets to the arena, which obviously they don’t sell any tickets to the arena” said Gahgan
“I don’t remember what the date was. It was a week or so before the fair started, the general manager, Jamie O’Brien notified our captain that it was going on. So he took reports directly.” said Gahagan
The Topsfield Police Department (TPD) receives a report from the topsfield fair about a website selling fraudulent tickets. Despite the report going directly to the Topsfield Chief of Police, Neal Hovey. Detective Sgt. Brendan Gahagan (TPD) takes the investigation upon himself. Though not much came of the investigation, Gahagan has accomplished great things for the TPD. Being a valuable member of his department and his community, He has played a major role in Topsfield’s biggest investigations. Be it Mailbox fishing or Explosives, to Larceny and illegal “ghost gun” manufacturing. Gahagan and his K9 have done it all.
After discovering the website, Gahagan attempted to contact the owners of the “company”
“I reached out to the company and I heard nothing back, of course” said Gahagan
Fraudulent tickets don’t come as a surprise to the TPD, during the fair people will try to sell fake tickets in the area, along with ride passes.
“we’ve got fake tickets before, usually during the fair, there’ll be somebody lined up on the street and they’ll try to sell fake tickets or they’re ride passes.” said Gahagan “That’s been a common thing over the years”
However, this was the first time the TPD had received reports of a full blown, sophisticated, scam website offering tickets to events at the fair that were not happening, such as popular bands.
“but never online tickets” said Gahagan “someone that doesn’t have knowledge of the fair or how the fair operates would definitely fall for it, you know, for eighty bucks to see 38 special or these other bands that they wanted to see”
Besides the fair, Gahagan has worked on much more high profile cases. Back in November, Gahagan played a key role in an investigation with the state police on “ghost guns” (Firearms produced without serial numbers, commonly with 3D printed lower receivers which is the frame of a firearm)
“last November I was working with the state police” said Gahagan “they intercepted an Ebay package from China, it was the upper unit of a firearm”
“they had the address in town’ said Gahagan “there were some other statements and reports that were unrelated that caused us to think we should really look into this, then we did a knock-and-talk”
Gahagan’s K-9 Aster played a role in the investigation as well
“my K-9 Aster did a protective sweep of the area, and she sat, which is an alert on an explosive device, which led us to into the pool house they were all staying at, which we found all the ghost guns inside on a search warrant” said Gahagan
Crime like this is rather unusual in Topsfield
“You don’t expect that kind of stuff, but it happens everywhere.” said Gahagan
The TPD doesn’t deal with much violent crime in Topsfield. Larceny and fraud are among the most common
“We get a lot of fraud cases, Larceny you know. I have a trial next week for a larceny check.”
Gahagans case on this specific larceny check came from mailbox fishing, which is when someone uses string and an adhesive to “fish” mail out of a public mail dropoff. such as a USPS or fedex Box.
“this particular one was for mailbox fishing” said Gahagan “they literally fish mail out of the blue boxes… what they would do is get string with rat trap glue and a water bottle, fish out mail, rip through it looking for checks, then wash the check and reprint them… this particular case happened to a Topsfield resident”
