news article: twins and fingerprints

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Eyewitness News
Local News | Johannesburg
Identical twins at the centre of a Joburg crime mystery
Alex Eliseev | 20 Hours Ago

Eyewitness News has learnt that Sandton police have been trying to unravel a crime spree allegedly committed by identical twins.

The pair was arrested in 2007 and then again for a house robbery the following year but their remarkable resemblance has made it difficult for victims to identify them, while similar fingerprints are also proving a problem.

Police officers call Thabo and Thabang Malete "the twins" and believe they are behind a spate of crimes ranging from hijacking to murder. Both were on trial for the 2008 robbery until one of the brothers died a month ago.

A Bryanston woman, who testified against them, said their plan was ingenious.

“You never saw them together that was their modus operandi. They made sure they were never in the same room at the same time,” she said.
She said at first she thought she was being robbed by one person with split personalities.

“I thought the guy might be schizophrenic coming into the room one moment being all pleasant and the next thing acting like a lunatic,” she said.

She claimed the twins almost committed the perfect crime.

Police sources said their fingerprints differ by only three small features while their DNA is absolutely identical. Officers also suspect one of the twins tried to swap identities with his brother after he died.

Meanwhile, a police forensic expert said it was possible for identical twins to have the same DNA but never the same fingerprints.

“Identical twins have identical DNA because after fertilisation at some point the embryo splits in half,” said the police’s DNA expert Michelle Thompson.

She said fingerprints will always differ.

The case against the remaining twin is due to proceed in January.

http://www.eyewitnessnews.co.za/article ... x?id=54387

Now if I was a reporter, and “a police forensic expert said it was possible for identical twins to have the same DNA but never the same fingerprints”, I would leave it with the expert's statement, but I suppose it sounds more exciting to also quote un-named “police sources” who say “their fingerprints differ by only three small features while their DNA is absolutely identical”.
All the twin-prints I’ve ever seen differ by more than three features....