Rome, Italy, Feb.19 - They lived a rich life by exploiting the identity of wealthy foreign landowners, cloning their credit cards and passports. The two African couples dug out by the police (f. D. K., aged 35 and a. A. R. aged 27, both from Ghana, and h. F. aged 25, from Eritrea and h. H. A. aged 35 from Sudan) had skilfully reproduced the IDs of Swedish, Dutch, and mostly American tourists, sticking their own photographs on them and each time walking in their shoes, as millionaires.

For years they showed up in shops, purchasing expensive products with the credit cards and IDs, apparently valid. All this was done with no suspects.

The fraud then surfaced several months later, when the banking system found out about the cloning, putting the debt back on the shopkeepers and asking them to pay back the sums of the counterfeited purchases. When the event was reported to the police, the cheaters had already changed ID. However, in the umpteenth 'operation', the couples were betrayed by their excess defiance. The Carabinieri had already alerted the shopkeepers of the area where the couples 'operated'.

When these people showed up at an important jewellery shop in the Prenestina area, the owners called the Carabinieri, who waited for them outside the shop after they made their purchase. The four people were all arrested, and stand accused of illegal possession of credit cards, impersonation and association in receiving of stolen property.

A search in their homes allowed the Carabinieri to discover it was a deluxe apartment just oustide Rome, where another 20 cloned credit cards were found, as well as several IDs, and stolen property such as plasma screens, leatherwear, watches, rings, necklaces, for an overall value of about 300,000 euros. Not nearly as much as what they gained during these recent years.