Police Target Madonna Ticket Scalpers : Music: $30 tickets to her concerts at the Sports Arena reportedly are selling for as much as $600.

Police officers are realizing what Los Angeles concert-goers have known for weeks: Madonna tickets, like her latest record, are in “Vogue.”

And as the princess of pop prepares for five nights of raucous partying starting tonight at the Los Angeles Sports Arena, police and concert officials are preparing to crack down on scalpers and vendors who see her sold-out concerts as a potential way to make an illegal buck, or much more.

Madonna’s “Blond Ambition” tour set a record pace in Los Angeles for ticket sales, with the first three concerts scheduled for this weekend selling out in 45 minutes and two additional shows in half an hour. Scalpers are rumored to be offering the normally $30 tickets for as much as $600, Sports Arena officials said.

“We’re really going to be trying to make a stab at trying to end the illegal vending at the facility,” said Alisa Spilman of the Sports Arena, which is working with the Los Angeles Police Department to combat the problem. “If we can hit them now, hopefully they’ll get the idea that we’re not going to put up with it anymore.”

Uniformed officers, providing routine security at the concerts, will be paying special attention to would-be scalpers, said Chief William Rathburn of the LAPD’s South Bureau. In addition, an undercover scalping detail will be deployed during each of Madonna’s performances.

“They will be arresting the scalpers, seizing the tickets and booking them as evidence,” said Rathburn, adding that enforcement against scalpers is not usually a high priority at concerts but is necessary in this case. “It’s a sold-out event with high ticket demand,” he said, and police don’t want people being taken advantage of by street ticket vendors.

Scalping--selling tickets on or near the grounds of an event without a license--is a misdemeanor.

Hopefully, “the word will get around that scalpers can’t take advantage of people down here,” Rathburn said. “And it’ll run them away.”