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A German-Iraqi woman killed a doppelganger she found on social media to fake her own death. The body of a 23-year-old woman was discovered in a car in August in the Bavarian town of Ingolstadt with numerous stab wounds.

Police said they believed the victim owned the car, but the next day identified her as someone else who looked "remarkably similar."

The 23-year-old German-Iraqi, identified only as Sharaban K, and a 23-year-old Kosovan man were arrested on suspicion of manslaughter.

Nevertheless, police are now working on the theory the pair murdered the victim after stalking the Algerian beauty blogger online because she looked similar to the German Iraqi.

"Investigators now believe the female suspect wanted to go into hiding and fake her death due to family problems," they said in a statement Monday.

She contacted the victim in early August and arranged to meet her on August 16.

The German-Iraqi woman and the Kosovan man travelled to the victim's home in Heilbronn, near Stuttgart, to pick her up.

On the way back to Ingolstadt, they allegedly tempted her out of the vehicle in a wooded area and killed her, inflicting "a large number" of knife wounds. The suspects then continued on to Ingolstadt, where the body was found lying in the car in the evening.

According to the daily Sueddeustche Zeitung, the German-Iraqi was a beautician who entrapped the victim via Instagram by offering her cosmetics.

Both women had "long brown hair, a dark complexion, and a heavily made-up face," the newspaper said.

"It was an extraordinary case that demanded all the investigators' skills," Andreas Aichele, a spokesman for the local police force, told the German newspaper Bild.

He added: "We don't have a case like this every day — especially with such a spectacular twist. On the day we found the body, we didn't expect it to turn out like this."

If convicted, the pair face life sentences.