Tripoli, April 4: Turkish security forces at Istanbul’s Ataturk International Airport arrested a 33-year old Libyan following the discovery of $2.5 . . .[restrict]million in his luggage by customs authorities. He has been charged with not declaring the money on entry into the country.
The unnamed Libyan reportedly told the Turkish police that he was flying via Istanbul to the Jordanian capital, Amman, on a business trip. However, he had been unable to catch his onward flight to Amman so he went through immigration onto Turkish territory to book another flight to the Jordanian capital.
The Turkish security forces referred the Libyan citizen to a local court yesterday after taking his statement. The money was handed over to Turkey’s Central Bank.
The amount of cash took almost six hours to count even with the help of Turkish bank officials. It took a further 12 hours to check the serial numbers of the seized money. [/restrict]
