COURTNEY LOVE - LOVE LAUNCHES LEGAL ATTACK AFTER IDENTITY THIEVES BUY HOUSE WITH COBAIN'S DETAILS

COURTNEY LOVE is fuming after identity thieves used her late husband KURT COBAIN's social security number to buy a $3.2 million (GBP1.6 million) property. The Nirvana rocker committed suicide in 1994 but still managed to purchase a New Jersey home last year (07) - much to Love's surprise. Identity thieves have also managed to open 188 credit cards in Love's name, and have embezzled as much as $69 million (GBP34.5 million) from the couple and the trust fund of their daughter, 14-year-old Frances Bean - and Love is desperate to bring the criminals to justice and reclaim the cash. Love handed over paperwork and bank statements to Los Angeles Police Department officials on Wednesday (05Mar08), almost four years after she first went public with her fears that money had been illegally taken from her daughter's trust fund. She says, "I knew it had been going on since when I went cuckoo - bananas - in 2003. It was fraud after fraud. But nobody believed me until now. I did a check on my deceased husband's social security number and he has a house in New Brunswick, New Jersey. He bought it last year. "I would like to know how. He should probably get his ass back home if that is the case." In 2004, she initially claimed she had been swindled out of a $40 million (GBP20 million) fortune, leaving her daughter with nothing from her inheritance. The documents, filed on Wednesday (05Mar08), show that 188 fraudulent credit cards, mortgages and loans have been taken out in Love and her late husband's names. Love says, "I have 26 pages covered in the word fraud, I have about 18 Amexes (American Express cards) and a new nine Amexes have just been found - all fraud. "I've never had more than one Amex - let alone 27 (sic). "(On) any given day... you can find me on a private plane from Tucson to Dallas, tooling around London... and LA - and four C Cobains on a Virgin flight to (London airport) Heathrow all on the same day." The star has employed forensics financial investigation company KROLL - the firm she claims "found Saddam Hussein's hidden assets" - to look into the embezzlement, and has an Orange County, California FBI agent ready to take on her four-year investigation when the issue "gets press".