The Department of Investigations (DNI) has opened an investigation into fraudulent internal debt bonds amounting to RD$238 million. The investigation will include high level officials in the Finance Department. The forgeries were discovered due to a small mistake made by the forgers while numbering the series of bonds. This attracted the attention of bank officials who were about to pay the interest on the bonds. Listin Diario reports that the fraudulent bonds are worth 100 thousand pesos each and were printed on bond paper very similar to bonds issued by the Fernandez government to cover an internal debt of RD$5 billion. The DNI has interrogated three Venezuelans and various officials, among them an undersecretary of the Finance Department. ?Well-informed sources? told Listin that the forgers? intention was to involve the Banco de Reservas in an international scam in which the falsified bonds would be used as a guarantee. A bank official foiled their plan when he noticed the number sequence was missing a comma; what should have been 1,750 was printed as 1750. The source told Listin, ?Because of a simple comma, we discovered the magnitude of this would-be swindle.?
