The rumors and leaks are gathering momentum as the launch of RIM's BlackBerry 10 operating system on Jan. 30 nears. The latest leak to join the series is a photograph of the upcoming BlackBerry Z10 smartphone, which shows the device in black and white avatars.

The leaked image of the two BlackBerry Z10 dummy unites popped up on online photo-sharing and social networking site Instagram on Thursday, Jan. 24.

"Getting ever so close to the BlackBerry 10 launch event next week, the leaks keep popping up and getting us even more excited for what's to come. The latest leak is of two sweet looking BlackBerry Z10 dummy units that showed up on Instagram today. Shown off in both black and white, these guys are ready to hit a display somewhere in the very near future," reported CrackBerry.

The images were put up by someone who goes by the moniker "twinsyoulose," but have been removed from Instagram since, fueling speculations that the image is legit. Heading to the Instagram link now shows "page not found."

How "twinsyoulose" got his/her hands on this image is not known, but CrackBerry opines that it could well be from Rogers or another Canadian carrier. Last week, screenshots of the black and white variants of the BlackBerry Z10 were posted by @evleaks, and suggested that the handsets would be making their way to U.S. carrier Verizon.

With the RIM event knocking at the doorstep, we will soon know whether the company will release the BlackBerry Z10 in black and white.