NEW YORK -- A grand jury indicted 16 people on charges of taking part in schemes that helped scalpers get hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of tickets to Yankee and Mets baseball games.

Three indictments unsealed Monday allege that eight Yankee ticket agents and one Mets agent accepted tens of thousands of dollars to divert home game tickets to brokers and scalpers who sold them to fans at inflated prices.

Police arrested 10 defendants Sunday, including four Yankee agents who were arrested at the stadium before and during the game against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. The others, who included brokers and scalpers, were arrested at their homes. The Mets agent was arrested Monday at Shea Stadium.

The defendants include Frank Greenwald, president of the Ticket Agents Union Local F-72, and his brother Richard, an officer of that union. They and other defendants were charged variously with grand larceny, scheme to defraud and bribery.

The investigation began some 15 months ago after a fan complained that the scalper who had sold him tickets before a Yankee game was the same man he saw working in the Yankees' advance ticket sales window after the game.

Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau said that so far this year alone, more than $300,000 worth of Yankee and Mets tickets were diverted.

"Ordinary fans showing up at the stadium had virtually no chance to obtain the best tickets available to Yankee games, since corrupt agents were diverting them to scalpers," District Attorney Robert Morgenthau said.

The Yankees and Mets received face value for all tickets sold, but the Yankees lost royalties they would have collected from Ticketmaster, which has an exclusive contract to sell Yankee tickets by telephone and Internet.

State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, whose office ran a parallel investigation, said there was an "unholy alliance between ticket scalpers and those who work in the box offices."

Morgenthau said the scalping ring was led by Steven Mootoo, an unlicensed ticket broker in Manhattan. The top count against Mootoo and the others, second-degree grand larceny, is punishable by up to 15 years in prison.