SHAH ALAM, Malaysia (Kyodo) Malaysian police have obtained a court order to extend the detention of two Japanese until Thursday to facilitate an investigation into an international syndicate dealing with counterfeit money and U.S. Treasury bonds.
Hideo Yamashita, 62, of Gunma Prefecture, and Kunihiro Mori, 68, of Kanagawa Prefecture, were among four people taken into custody Friday when police raided a hotel in Shah Alam, the capital of Selangor state. The other two were a 38-year-old Malaysian man and a 31-year-old Indonesian woman.
"We want to find out how many people have been cheated and the extent of their operation before we decide whether to charge them," a Shah Alam police officer who declined to be named said.
Yamashita, suspected of being the ringleader, apparently told the police he is a descendant of Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita, a top commander of the Japanese army in Asia during World War II. Among the items seized by the police were dozens of counterfeit World War II currency notes issued by the Japanese government.
Other items included 114 sheets of brown-colored A4-size paper with the words Federal Reserve Bond embossed on them, 150 gold certificates valued at $100,000 each, four gold coins and five "Federal Reserve Bond" cards.