Warning for Twins and Wild fans buying secondhand tickets

Fans who bought tickets for Minnesota Wild, Twins, Vikings and Gophers games bought legitimate, genuine tickets off Craigslist, but never got into the game. That's because the tickets were purchased with a stolen credit card, and voided after the fraudulent purchases were discovered.

Minneapolis police say Ahmed Dahir would buy tickets off Ticketmaster using a stolen credit card. He would then post them on Craigslist, and hand them off to the buyer before Ticketmaster voided the tickets. Dahir would walk away with cash, and the buyers would walk away with real, but worthless tickets.

Police say at least 5 victims met Dahir at the intersection of 22nd and Lyndale, which is where they executed an undercover purchase. After finding Wild tickets on Craigslist, police were met by Dahir and his fraudulent tickets, and officers made the arrest.

"We've seen it more times than we care to think about," Twins spokesman Kevin Smith said. "Fans buy tickets from the secondary person, come to the game, and they can't get into the game because the tickets are fake.

When buying tickets on the street, Smith suggests taking a photo of the seller. He also recommends you avoid buying home-printed tickets unless you saw them come out of the printer yourself.

For secondary market purchases, the Twins recommend StubHub, which is the official ticket reseller of Major League Baseball. The wild recommend Ticket Exchange, which is connected to Ticketmaster.

Ahmed Dahir is facing a theft-by-swindle-charge.