Exactly, As reported in the links, both acquafredda and Kartama1 were discovered not only plagiarising, but also being alts of the same person!

I exchanged posts and merited multiple times acquafredda, and I reckon he was always providing good bitcoin-related content for the Italian board.
I also crossed the path with Kartama1, always in international boards, never had any suspicion about him being Italian, nevertheless being an alt of someone.
I didn’t bother to count or check closely on @loucev website, but I guess that the cumulated merits to those two profiles add up quite nicely to the total in @ddmrddmr chart above.
I am surprised and saddened by this, but forum rules are forum rules, and a legendary user (!!!) should know them. Actually, acquafredda being a legendary user, make all this story a little bit harsher.

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Back on topic, I guess surely merits come way before merits, both on a temporal and on a logical timeline.
I expressed my view on my infamous thread:

Ranking up is possible! 2900 Merits earned in less than 12 months!My 11 Hints!

I think it’s is still a good read.