It used to be amusing back in the Seventies when TV private eye Jim Rockford had a machine in his car to make a phony business card for any occasion.

It wasn't so funny when an alert Eagle Nest motel clerk saw that a guest was using a credit card that didn't look right early last month, the Raton Range reported.

When the motel's card reader wouldn't read the guest's credit card, the clerk tried to make a pencil imprint and found the credit card numbers weren't raised, so she became suspicious and called Colfax County authorities as the man left, he said, to get another card, the paper said.

Colfax County Deputy Christina Roth caught the call and managed to catch up with Bruce Insley, 52, and Lisa Forsyth, 46, both of Dallas, on U.S. 64 near Ute Park, the Range reported.

Roth found Insley was wanted in Texas on a felony warrant for violating probation on drug charges, the paper said.

A search of their 1993 Jeep turned up a list of 516 credit-card numbers reported stolen from an automotive business in Elko, Nev., as well as numbers from other unknown sources, the Range said.

Also found in the Jeep were magnetic strips cut from credit cards, mail belonging to another person, vehicle titles belonging to others, altered Wal-Mart debit cards, a partially made Texas driver's license for Insley as well as a laminating device, heat guns, cutters, glue, a "cut-out VISA plate," a copier and a laptop computer, the Range reported.

One credit-card number found in the couple's possession had been used to make $14,525 in fraudulent charges, the paper said.

Roth's investigation led her to retrace the couple's steps from the time they left Dallas in June and traveled through Santa Fe; Elko, Nev.; Durango, Colo.; Alpine, Ariz.; and back to Santa Fe and Taos and finally Eagle Nest in late September, the Range reported.

Insley was still being held last week at the Colfax County Detention Center in Raton on a $50,000 cash-only bond, while Forsyth was released on an unsecured $20,000 bond, the paper said.

Both are scheduled for preliminary hearings in Springer Magistrate Court Tuesday on charges of credit-card fraud, the Range reported.

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