Thai police seized fake US bonds with a face value of $24.7 billion from a Bangkok bank vault yesterday after an attempted fraud involving claims that a vast wartime trove had been found in a remote cave.
Police said two Filipinos, one Singaporean and one Thai citizen had been arrested on charges of trying to sell counterfeit debt papers. The arrests were the latest chapter in a multi-billion-dollar attempted fraud which has caused a sensation in Thailand and badly dented the government's credibility.
Police arrested the four suspects after they tried to sell the fake bonds to a brother of the Prime Minister, Mr Thaksin Shinawatra. The charges carry a maximum penalty of life in jail.
The police later found counterfeit bonds, each with a face value of $100 million, and fake gold coins in a bank deposit box in Bangkok. Police said the fake bonds were part of an elaborate scam in which fraudsters tried to pass them off as part of a second World War treasure haul said to have been found in a remote cave.
A controversial senator, Mr Chaowarin Latthasaksiri, created gold fever last week with claims that a vast hoard of treasure left behind by the Japanese army during the war was hidden in the cave near the Myanmar border, surrounded by the skeletons of Japanese soldiers who had committed hara-kiri. He said the haul included thousands of tonnes of gold and US bonds with a face value of more than $50 billion.
Newspapers took his story with a pinch of salt - the former deputy education minister had made similar claims before.
But Mr Thaksin took the story seriously enough to change his schedule and fly to the cave by helicopter last Friday, and senior politicians said the treasure could be valuable enough to pay off Thailand's $62 billion national debt.