One of Italy's most celebrated climbers has been accused of faking his place among the world's mountaineering elite by using stolen pictures and photoshopped images to bolster his record.
Marco Confortola, 54, proudly declared last month that he had conquered all 14 of the world's peaks higher than 8,000metres - including Everest - an achievement claimed by only around 50 climbers worldwide.
The feat was all the more extraordinary because Confortola lost all of his toes to frostbite during a deadly 2008 storm on K2.
But fellow Italian mountaineer Simone Moro has accused him of fraud, alleging that Confortola never actually reached six of the summits he claims - among them Kangchenjunga and Annapurna.
Moro, 56, claims Confortola used a photo of Kangchenjunga taken by a Pakistani climber, cropped him out, and inserted himself into a summit show on Lhotse, originally taken by Spanish alpinist Jorge Egocheaga.
