Thousands of ‘dollars’ found dumped in garbage container in Lebanon

Cairo: A town in Lebanon, which is experiencing its worst economic in decades, has been surprised at seeing wads of dollar bills dumped amid garbage, according to a media report.

The bills were found inside a garbage container in the area of Sin Al Feel in the coast Mount Lebanon governorate, the news portal Sky News said, citing a local official.

“It was a bizarre morning,” said Nabil Kahala, the head of the town’s municipality. “I was awakened in the morning by a phone call informing me that the town was drowning in dollars. It was a shock,” he told the site.

The bills were later found to be fake. “They were pieces of ordinary papers on which an image of the US 100 dollars was copied. They may belong to an institution that is engaged in shooting a film,” he added.

The Internal Security Forces were notified of the incident. Authorities opened an inquiry to unravel the source of the counterfeit bills and how they found their way to the container, the official said.

Lebanon is in the grip of a crippling economic crisis, including a collapse in its foreign currency reserves that has taken a toll on living standards and operation of vital sectors.