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Beijing - A man found guilty of scalping more than 500 tickets to the Beijing Olympics was sentenced to two and a half years in jail and a $65 000 fine, state media reported on Sunday.

The Chinese, 41, used illegally obtained identification information to book 527 Olympic tickets worth $34 000 through the organisers' online ticketing system, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

The man had agreed to obtain the tickets for two companies in Beijing and Guangzhou – at a profit of 50% and 60%. 

He was arrested by police on May 13, Xinhua said. Beijing Olympics organisers in the lead up to the Games had warned that ticket scalping was illegal and anyone caught risked being detained for up to 15 days.

The police also raised the threat of re-education through labour, where Chinese can be sentenced to manual labour camps without trial.

A total of seven million tickets were available for the Beijing Olympics, three-quarters of which were sold in China through the official ticketing web site or at ticket outlets.

Between May 5, when the final round of Olympic ticket sales began in China, and July 27, police caught about 100 Chinese black marketers, some whom tried to sell tickets at up to 100 times their original value, state media earlier reported.