'Dishonest' touting firm operated by two people from Norfolk sold millions of pounds worth of tickets
Chenery-Woods and Paul Douglas both of Dickleburgh, near Diss, Norfolk, deny three counts of fraudulent trading.
A touting firm was motivated by "greed and dishonesty" when it "exploited the love and passion" of music lovers to sell more than Ă‚ÂŁ6.5 million of tickets on secondary ticketing sites in two and a half years, prosecutors have said.
TQ Tickets Ltd used multiple identities, some of which were fake, to buy large amounts of tickets for artists such as Ed Sheeran and Little Mix on primary sites including Ticketmaster and re-sell them on secondary ticketing platforms such as Viagogo, a jury at Leeds Crown Court was told.
Jonathan Sandiford KC, prosecuting, told jurors the driving force behind TQ Tickets Ltd was Maria Chenery-Woods, who referred to herself as the Ticket Queen.
The court heard how Chenery-Woods and Paul Douglas, who referred to himself as Ticket Boy, have pleaded guilty to fraudulent trading but their respective spouses - Mark Woods and Linda Chenery - have denied the offences and went on trial on Wednesday morning.
Chenery is also Chenery-Woods's sister.
Opening the case, Mr Sandiford said: "What this case is about is greed and dishonesty. The two defendants were ticket touts."
He said: "They were part of a dishonest scheme that, over a number of years, exploited the love and passion that many of us have for our favourite pop bands, our favourite artists - people like Ed Sheeran and so forth."
Mr Sandiford said they did this "in order to milk them for profits".
The prosecutor explained how the firm, using various members of staff including "corrupted" students, would make multiple applications for event tickets, sometimes using entirely fictional identities and a range of bank and debit cards.
He said the actions of the firm, which included speculatively listing tickets for sale before they had even sourced them, sometimes led to fans being refused entry to venues or with poorer tickets than they paid for.
The prosecutor referred to practices including "doing a fraudie", which involved sending customers ripped envelopes to infer that the tickets had been lost-in-transit, or "using fraud juice", which involved the use of Tipp-Ex correcting fluid, or more sophisticated digital methods, to amend tickets.
The prosecutors told jurors how the firm was originally set up as a coach company and retained a "veneer" of legitimacy.
He said: "That was a very thin veneer.
"You didn't have to probe very deep into it to see that this was a dishonest business."
Mr Sandiford said that in the period June 2015 to December 2017, the firm had sales in excess of Ă‚ÂŁ6.5 million on secondary ticket platforms.
He said: "Although Mrs Chenery-Woods was the driving force behind this dishonest scheme both of these defendants played different but important roles in that dishonest enterprise."
Mr Sandiford told the jury that the fact that Chenery-Woods and Douglas had pleaded guilty meant that there was "no dispute that the fraudulent scheme exists".
He said Chenery-Woods was "obsessed with ticket touting" and Douglas was "extremely loyal to her and her ticket touting enterprise".
The prosecutor said Woods, who worked a senior manager for Philips UK, was less enthusiastic and referred to it as a "horrid industry".
He said both the defendants on trial were involved in the practice of providing multiple identities and credit and debit cards for buying tickets.
Mr Sandiford said that, unlike music promoters who put tickets for acts into the market, ticket touts do not put money back into the industry or promote new music.
He said that, in one message, Douglas said to Chenery-Woods that the purpose of the business is to "simply rinse consumers for as much profit as they are willing to pay".
Woods, 59, and Chenery, 51, both of Dickleburgh, near Diss, Norfolk, deny three counts of fraudulent trading.