Rio police arrest Cup scalpers

Rio police said Saturday they had arrested eight people caught in the act of selling World Cup tickets for above their face value at Maracana stadium.

A spokesman said eight people, workers from the consortium which recently gave a multimillion-dollar refurbishment to the Maracana, which hosted the 1950 final and will host this year's trophy match on July 13, were detained.

They are accused of having tried to sell tickets to several first phase matches in Rio, including France versus Ecuador, Argentina versus Bosnia and Belgium against Russia.

"They were being monitored and were caught red-handed trying to sell the tickets for 400 reais ($170)," around twice their face value, a police spokesman said.

In March, FIFA, which has sold more than three million tickets for the June 12-July 13 extravaganza, said it could track every ticket down to the buyer and warned fraudsters they would be caught.

"We can track every ticket down to the person who has actually bought them. We are monitoring what's going on around the stadium," said FIFA marketing director Thierry Weil.

"If you cannot come to the game -- resell it to the platform on FIFA.com," Weil urged anyone who might not use a ticket they had bought online via the international federation's website.

He added that football's governing body was working closely with the Brazilian government to crack down on scalpers seeking to make a fast buck on resales.