Police Track Zweck Impersonator

British police are following up on several clues in their search for the impostor pretending to be Depeche Mode agent Andrew Zweck, although they admit most are leading up blind alleys.

Constable Fakhar Assi, who works for a special unit that fast-tracks such cases, told Pollstar that efforts failed to contact the poser via two e-mail addresses he or she used.

Assi is currently checking out the Latvian bank account the suspect was using to collect the deposit payments for the bogus shows.

The impostor’s Web address (sensibleevents.net) links to a free site posted by GoDaddy.com.

Assi said the case is made more difficult because no actual fraud was committed, although circumstantial evidence suggests one was attempted.

Someone purporting to be called Andrew Zweck, and using an e-mail address very similar to Zweck’s, sold a May 9 Depeche Mode show to a promoter in Israel.

Alan Cottam, the Lancashire, England-based agent that brokered the deal, was overseeing the Israeli promoter’s euro 150,000 deposit when the bogus show came to the attention of Zweck’s Sensible Events office in London. Sensible is a Live Nation Company.

“It was pure luck that he didn’t send the money because we only found out when someone from Israel commented on the fact the band was doing a second show there, and my staff knew there wasn’t a second show,” Zweck explained.

A May 10 show at Tel Aviv’s Ramat Gan Stadium, a cooperation between Germany promoter Marek Lieberberg and Israeli promoter Shuki Weiss, was already on sale.

Cottam warned his Israeli client, who pulled out of the deal just hours before he was due to pay the deposit. The mystery agent appears to have gone to ground.

Zweck is concerned that other agents and promoters may have been contacted by the bogus agent and been duped into paying.