Foul Phish tickets get snagged August 8, 1996 - The Denver Post By Kieran Nicholson Counterfeits seized at DIA cargo center Hundreds of bogus tickets for last night's sold-out Phish concert at Red Rocks Amphitheatre were confiscated by Denver police at Denver International Airport yesterday after alert airline cargo employees tipped authorities about the scam - thereby avoiding a potentially riotous situation outside the concert gates. "It's a good thing they didn't get up there, because that could have caused forget it. It could have been a real disaster," promoter Barry Fey said last night. The airport incident was first reported by KUSA-Channel 9. Over the past four nights, hundreds of fans without tickets to shows have been lining the streets of Morrison looking for what "Phish Heads" call "miracle" tickets. Some of those who couldn't get into Monday's concert wound up in a confrontation with police, and 10 people were arrested. Yesterday at about 2 p.m., two men in their early 20s showed up at the American Airlines Cargo Center at DIA asking for a package from Mexico, said Laura Kosch, a cargo agent. During standard questioning, an agent asked the men about the contents of the expected package, and they said "tickets." The pair seemed edgy and told employees that they needed the tickets "immediately." The cargo agents told the men that the plane wasn't in yet and that when it did come in, the package would have to pass through customs, Kosch said. The pair said they would be back. When the package arrived from Mexico City, customs checked it and told air cargo employees that the tickets were for last night's Phish concert. "We said, 'Huh? That's kind of mysterious,' because we knew the show was sold out," said Kosch. American Airlines called TicketMaster, and a representative asked that the airline fax a copy of a ticket. The bogus ticket scam unraveled quickly from there. Police were alerted, and a surveillance operation went into motion. Only one man returned, and he was confronted by police. The counterfeit tickets were confiscated, and the Phish ticket scam is under investigation by police, said Sgt. Rick Killough. No arrests had been made. Four hundred to 1,000 tickets were in the small box, which weighed about 2 pounds. "All of us looked at them, and we thought it was excellent quality," Kosch said of the counterfeits. In an unrelated incident Tuesday night, an undercover sting outside Red Rocks Amphitheatre during the Phish concert netted eight arrests and an assortment of illicit drugs. "We were buying," said Lt. Ted Mink, commander of the West Metro Drug Task Force. "It was like a drugstore." About a dozen undercover investigators participated in the sting. "We waited until the concert had started, and we worked the parking lots until the concert let out," said Mink. "All you had to do was walk through the parking lot. They (the drug peddlers) would say, 'Man, you want this?' "They had LSD. They had the drug called Ecstasy. They had coke (cocaine). You could have been there all night making deals if you wanted to," Mink said. The task force targeted the parking lots after surveying activities Monday night. "The drug sales were out of control," he said. © 1996 The Denver Post Corporation