TOKYO, Feb. 19 (UPI) -- Japanese customs officials will investigate if the staff of Japan's Nippon Television Network brought counterfeit money into Japan for a show, a report said.
The Mainichi Daily News quoted finance Ministry officials as saying the NTV staff obtained what appeared to be counterfeit notes of North Korean origin from the border area between North Korea and China.
The officials said they brought them into Japan for inspection and then broadcast the issue on its news show on Monday.
The notes consisted of one 10,000-yen note and five $100 bills, the report said.
NTV officials said they had reported the bills to police after the show and had not acted illegally.
"We didn't know that the bills were necessarily fakes; we simply brought them back to report on them. The day after the broadcast, we reported them to police. There was no illegality involved," an NTV spokesman said.
