Iraqi interior minister Nuri Badran has called on Lebanon to release 19.5 billion new Iraqi dinars (about 19 million dollars) seized this week at Beirut airport, a newspaper said Saturday.
In a letter published by An Nahar, Badran asked his Lebanese counterpart Elias Murr to free the people detained in connection with the case and release the money seized with them.
He said a private plane arrived in Beirut on January 14 with 19.5 billion Iraqi dinars in cash from a company called Laru to be delivered to a businessman running an exchange company in Beirut.
"This sum of money belongs to the company Laru which is carrying out urgent contracts for the Iraqi interior ministry to provide very important and sensitive equipment," Badran said.
Judicial sources here said four Lebanese nationals were detained and the cash seized after the plane arrived in Beirut from Baghdad on suspicion the money could be connected to a currency speculation scheme.
Prominent Lebanese attorney Edmond Naim, a former governor of the Central Bank of Lebanon, told An Nahar it was not illegal to bring currencies in cash into the country.
"This is a fundamental law in the Lebanese state," he said.
Iraqi central bank officials have conceded that large quantities of the new dinar, particularly easily-carried 25,000 notes, may be being smuggled to neighbouring countries.
Smuggling of the new dinars out of Iraq by traders hoping to make hefty gains, notably when Iraq's economy improves and its oil exports increase, has caused the currency's value to spike wildly.
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