In three separate incidents this year, police nabbed ticket counterfeiters with the help of alert sports fans. It seems ticket forgeries are just the latest version of the deadly game of counterfeiting – a game where there are no winners.

Counterfeiters are now pouncing on unwitting sports fans, forged tickets in hand.

Undercover officers tackle National Football League forgers.

Early this year, undercover officers from the Green Bay and Ashwaubenon Police Departments arrested two suspects who tried to sell counterfeit tickets at the Packers-Seattle Seahawks game. According to Green Bay Police Lt. Mike Nick, the two were identified as Nicholas Barnett, 21, of Chicago, and Donnie B. Latham, 27, of the Chicago area. They were each charged with forgery and theft by fraud and were held in jail on a $25,000 cash bond. It was later revealed that Latham was holding 12 counterfeit tickets to the game and that a total of six forged tickets were sold to fans. Police investigations were aided by National Football League investigators and Packers officials.

Police slam into Stanley Cup fraudsters.

In the world of ice hockey, off-duty Pittsburgh police saved the day for hapless Pittsburgh Penguins fans who were attending Game Three of the Stanley Cup Finals between Pittsburgh and the Detroit Red Wings. They bought playoff tickets from scalpers outside Mellon Arena – and later discovered that the tickets were fake when they couldn’t enter the arena. By quickly alerting police, the following were immediately caught and charged with forgery and deception: El Rasheen Dozier, 36, of Cleveland, Clifton McIntosh, 49, of Pittsburgh, and Alfonzo Clark, 36, of the Bronx, N.Y. One giveaway of the alleged forgeries was that the tickets were on a different type of paper and the word Mellon was misspelled Melon.

Cops slam-dunk Boston Celtics counterfeiters .

Police and the Boston Celtics are now warning fans to be extra careful when they buy their tickets after 38 people recently presented counterfeit tickets. Police arrested four people for selling counterfeit tickets for Game 1 of the NBA Championship against the Los Angeles Lakers. According to Elaine Driscoll, police spokeswoman, it can be difficult to identity the subtle differences in the color and the style of lamination between fake and real tickets, so people should always buy tickets from authorized sellers. She advised Celtics fans not to purchase tickets at the street level to avoid getting scammed.

Euro 2008 and the US’s National Football League (NFL) have taken steps to counter counterfeit tickets.

UEFA (the European football union) has taken some strong measures to stop any kind of counterfeiting or forgery of EURO 2008 tickets. One of the important initiatives – all the tickets will be bar coded and scanned at the turnstiles to ensure the ticket can not be counterfeited easily. Also, everyone with group match tickets for the championships were able to receive them two weeks before the opening game last June – while visitors with "Follow My Team Tournament" tickets for the knockout stage received vouchers that were exchanged for match tickets on site.

Euro 2008 organizers have also stressed in their Web site that fans don’t have to victimized by unscrupulous counterfeit ticket sellers – and advised them to make use of the public pre-sale to buy tickets to the games and thereby avoid any trouble. Only by buying official tickets can fans access the stadium.

Meanwhile, NFL security has recently issued the following advice to help detect fraudulent tickets:

• There is a detectable laser cut with the inscription "AZ 42 AZ 42" approximately 1 inch down from the top of the ticket between the bar code and the gate/section/seat description.
• There is also a hologram on the back that will alternately show the stadium and the Super Bowl logo.  

Today, the tentacles of the counterfeiting world are reaching far and wide. And sports fans, like any other consumers, must take steps to make sure the money they put into their purchases go to legitimate rights owners, and not the counterfeiters’ pocketbook.