ATHENS, Aug 13 (AFP) - A US national was due to appear before a court in the Greek capital Friday after he was caught selling tickets to Olympic events at black market prices, police have said.
The man was arrested late Thursday in central Athens with 78 Olympic tickets, which he was allegedly selling at prices up to four times their face values of 15 to 70 euros (18 to 85 dollars), police said.
Police gave no further details of the man's identity.
The arrest is the first at the Athens Olympics for ticket touting.
Official tickets sales for the Olympics, which begin on Friday, have been speeding up with the approach of the Games after getting off to a worryingly slow start.
On Wednesday, the head of the organising committee, Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki, said a total of 2.6 million tickets out of an estimated 5.3 million for the 31 sports events had been sold, representing 91 percent of the ticket sales revenue target of 183 million euros.