By Tom Phillips in Rio de Janeiro.
July 27, 2009

There's always a lot of crime in the pages of Rio's daily newspaper O Dia. But apart from the occasional mugging, it's not common to find a group of Brits at the centre of the dodgy-dealings.

Today, however, O Dia carries a story about a group of British tourists who have been arrested in Rio after allegedly trying to con the tourist police into believing they had been robbed while travelling from Foz de Iguacu to Rio. According to the story they turned up at Rio's tourist police station claiming to have had all of their luggage stolen. They did, however, still have their passports which made the local cops wonder. On a hunch the police took a trip down to the tourists' hotel - where they found the luggage and decided it was an insurance scam.

The tourists, O Dia reports, are now facing a fraud charge. What a way to spend your holidays.