Nigerian cheques worth half a billion dollars found in Jerusalem

Jerusalem

Moolah from heaven or a devilish scam? That is a question Jerusalem police are asking on Wednesday after signed cheques worth around half a billion dollars were found at the Western Wall. The Western Wall Heritage Foundation described them as “Nigerian cheques.”

The 507 cheques were discovered in an envelope at the Jewish holy site in the Old City of Jerusalem and handed in to police by a good Samaritan, the Western Wall Heritage Foundation said in a statement.

“The honest finder handed them over in accordance with the law to the police lost property office. For now the cheques are waiting for whoever lost them,” the statement said.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld confirmed the unusual discovery at the Wall, where the faithful are more likely to deposit scraps inscribed with their prayers than cheques for their life savings.

“There was an envelope that was found at the Western Wall. Inside the envelope itself were hundreds of cheques, each one for a sum close to a million dollars,” Rosenfeld told AFP.

“It’s been taken to ‘lost and found,’ and at the moment we’re examining the source of each cheque and if they’re real or not, but at the moment it looks as though they are genuine cheques,” he added.

Rosenfeld said the cheques were from various different countries, though the Western Wall Heritage Foundation described them as “Nigerian cheques.”

“From time to time the Wall receives donations from African countries,” the statement added. “But most of them bounce.”