Beijing, August 23 – China’s railway police have swooped down on 185 touts scalping tickets for the newly-operated Qinghai-Tibet railway line as tourists scrambled for limited tickets.
The people arrested were involved in 110 ticket brokering incidents, involving 812 tickets worth more than 470,000 yuan (USD 58,750), said Wei Yuzeng, an official in charge of security with the Ministry of Railways.
Wei said that local railway policemen in Beijing, Chengdu, Lanzhou and Qinghai had cracked down on 14 ticket brokering gangs.
“As far as we can tell, since August no passengers have bought tickets for Lhasa at inflated prices,” Wei was quoted as saying by Xinhua news agency.
Another police official with the ministry said that ticket brokers added up to 200 yuan (USD 25) to each train ticket from Lhasa, Tibet’s capital.
Other sources said the price of a ticket to Lhasa could be raised by as much as a hefty 800 yuan (USD 100).
An official with Beijing Railway Bureau, Qiao Xin said that passengers can buy no more than three tickets for Lhasa at a time. “People buying group tickets from the counter will be investigated by the police regarding the use of the tickets,” he said.
China railway police started a one-month campaign against illegal train ticket deals on the Qinghai-Tibet railway in July, after the opening of the worlds’ highest railway line led to a surge in the number of tourists going to Lhasa.
Statistics show that Tibet now receives 5,000 tourists every day, and about 1,700 take the Qinghai-Tibet railway.
The railway opened normal service on July 1.
