California 19-year-old arrested in bogus parking ticket scam

SANTA CRUZ, Calif. (AP) - A 19-year-old man designed fake parking tickets and put them on cars near the beach in Northern California last week.

This was in the hopes of collecting real payments, authorities said.

For further context, the man put the false citations on cars late Wednesday night, said Santa Cruz police.

This included a QR code linking potential victims to a website to pay a fine.

Investigators do not know how many fake tickets the man put on cars.

Not only that, authorities don't know how many victims may have paid the bogus fines.

Police then took the man into custody Thursday afternoon on suspicion of unlawful use of a computer system and attempted fraud.

He denied receiving any payments.

The coastal city of Santa Cruz is about 55 miles (88.51 kilometers) south of San Francisco.