The gallery of photographs told one story: a good-looking couple smiling to camera in front of the Eiffel Tower, riding horses on a white sand beach in Hawaii, sporting matching red swimwear in a luxury seaside resort.
When police officers searched the Philadelphia flat of Jocelyn Kirsch and Edward Anderton they uncovered a different story. They found four computers, a scanner, two printers and a machine that makes identity cards — the equipment needed to support what detectives now believe was a two-year, $100 000 spending spree funded largely by fraud.
On Friday the couple were charged with identity fraud, forgery and a host of other counts.
The police investigation began last month after the couple’s neighbour complained that her identity had been stolen. The neighbour said she had been told to pick up a package at a nearby delivery station even though she had ordered nothing, and police watched as Kirsch and Anderton picked up the package, which turned out to be luxury lingerie from London.
Piecing together events, detectives now allege that the couple, who were both privately educated at good schools and colleges, cheated several people in their apartment building.
”They were like a parasite that infected that building,” Detective Terry Sweeney told the Associated Press.
”They were two young people that were given many gifts in life. And the very best thing they could do was victimise other people.”
In their flat they had fake drivers’ licences, numerous credit cards and keys to the apartments and postal boxes of neighbours. There was also $18 000 in cash, and a copy of The Art of Cheating: A Nasty Little Book for Tricky Little Schemers and Their Hapless Victims.
Their travels took them to Paris, London, Hawaii and the Turks & Caicos Islands. Kirsch (22) a student at Drexel University in Philadelphia, treated herself to a $2 200 hair extension using a false cheque.
Anderton, aged 25, a graduate of the Ivy League University of Pennsylvania, was recently sacked from a job as a financial analyst, though the reasons for his dismissal were unclear.
So far police say they have found five victims of the couple’s activities, one of who was stung for $30 000. – Guardian Unlimited Â