Nickelback finds fraudster

It can be hard being a member of Nickelback. One week you’ve got Arnold Schwarzenegger saying “congress is less popular than herpes and Nickelback” on Twitter. The next you’ve got a US army officer banning your music from being played in his command post. And that’s just February 2017 — without even considering, before that, their music being used as a punishment for drink-drivers in Canada, Australian police announcing they were “wanted for crimes against music”, or the crowdfunded scheme to get them banned from the UK.

Now trolling of the Canadian hard-rock quartet has gone criminal, with a Florida man impersonating the band’s drummer to buy $25,000 (Dh91,815) worth of musical equipment using his name and personal details.

Lee Howard Koenig, 45, was arrested by Port St Lucie police earlier this week, after pretending to be Daniel Adair to order drums and microphones from an Austrian company. The crime came to light when the band’s team were contacted about the purchase. Adair turned amateur detective, searching on the internet for Florida-based drummers. Among them one was one with three websites, who appeared to use the same drum kit set-up as him. That proved to be Koenig.