Japanese with US treasury bonds held

Alert airport security personnel stopped a Japanese national from boarding a Japan Airlines flight for Narita, Japan yesterday on suspicion that his hand-held luggage contained a bomb but which later turned out to be US treasury bonds and notes worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

The notes included several Federal Reserve Bond Certificates and six antique gold coins which, according to Customs investigators, looked authentic.

The metal detector at the airport showed images of what looked like a bomb in the luggage of Inoue Horihito, 41, of Kanagama, Japan. Hirohito, a frequent visitor in Manila, admitted that the luggage was not his and was only given to him at the NAIA departure area by a certain John Felix, whom he met in a coffee shop in Pasay City. The refusal of the Japanese to open his luggage arose the suspicion of airport security personnel.

Officials said that it was not the first time that Hirohito attempted to smuggled US treasury bonds out of the country. Customs officials called the US embassy in Manila to send investigators to the airport to ascertain the authenticity of the US treasury bonds and notes and to determine where the notes came from. — Rey Arquiza