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Italian police today seized 1.8 billion euros ($ 2.3 billion) destined for Nomura and placed the former chief of the Japanese bank's European operations under investigation in a fraud probe over a derivatives deal with troubled Italian lender Monte dei Paschi.
A statement from the prosecutor's office in Siena, the hometown of the Italian bank, said it had ordered the seizure of "a total of around 1.8 billion eur os from Nomura International."
Prosecutors also seized a total of 14.4 million euros from three former managers of Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena who are under investigation.
It placed under investigation Sadeq Sayeed, the former head of Nomura for Europe, Middle East and Africa, as well as Raffaele Ricci, a managing director for fixed income sales.
The statement said Sayeed and Ricci were suspected of "gravely obstructing" the activities of supervisory authorities and putting out "false statements".
Contacted by AFP, Nomura declined to comment.
