Miami couple busted for posing as Adele’s manager to get free concert tickets
According to the Miami Herald, a Florida couple has been caught posing as Adele’s manager in order to scam people for free concert tickets. And though Adele’s real manager, Jonathan Dickins, literally refers to them as “a pair of dumb criminals” in a statement, they still managed to run the con for a while before anyone actually did anything about it. Apparently, Dickins himself notified the police about the suspicious behavior over a year ago when he started getting messages from celebrity reps wondering why Adele wanted free tickets to every concert in Miami. But authorities evidently didn’t do anything about it until the fake Jonathan Dickins reached out to Kendrick Lamar’s manager in hopes of getting tickets to his recent show during Miami’s Rolling Loud festival.
Lamar’s people contacted Dickins, who once again notified the police, which prompted them to (finally) set up a sting operation where a “cyber crimes detective” posed as a production manager working with Lamar who agreed to meet the fake Dickins in person and hand over some free passes. The person who turned up was actually a “longtime con man” named Justin Jackson, who arrived with his wife and a second woman. Jackson and his wife were arrested, while the other woman was allowed to go free.
Once authorities had identified the fake Dickins, they realized he has a history of impersonating celebrity reps in hopes of getting free stuff. He actually spent two years in prison after posing as a rep for Madonna and convincing a store in New York to loan him $2.4 million worth of jewelry in 2007, and he was sued in 2014 for posing as Oprah Winfrey’s nephew so he could get Juicy Couture handbags and—of all things—Cheesecake Factory gift cards.