OKINAWA CITY — Okinawa police late Tuesday forwarded charges of counterfeiting against two Marines to the Naha District Public Prosecutor.
The two are accused of attempting to pass fake 5,000-yen notes (about $48) at one off-base bar, according to police.
The suspects, ages 22 and 24, were not named because they are in the custody of military police, a police spokesman said.
Their names will be released if they are indicted; under the U.S.-Japan status of forces agreement, U.S. servicemembers in military custody are turned over to Japanese police once they are indicted.
Their names will not be made public until they are formally indicted, Marine officials said.
The suspects were assigned to Camp Foster, the officials said. An Okinawa police spokesman said U.S. military officials told Okinawan police the suspects have been separated so they cannot communicate with each other.
The Provost Marshal’s Office Criminal Investigative Division is cooperating and helping as needed in the investigation, a Marine spokesman said.
A spokesman for Okinawa Prefectural Police in Okinawa City said the two Marines are accused of paying a bar tab in the Kitamae district of Chatan, near Camp Foster, with a phony bill on March 8.
The Marines, who were still at the bar when Okinawa police officers arrived, said they were unaware the money was not legitimate and said they received it from an ATM machine on a military base, police said.
They were released at the time but later were placed under military custody after more fake 5,000-yen bills used at other neighborhood businesses redirected the investigation to them, a police spokesman said.
The Okinawa police spokesman said the two Marines reportedly admitted to investigators that they made two fake 5,000-yen notes on a scanner and color printer on March 4, and spent them the same day in the Chatan bar.
The third fake bill reportedly was made on March 6 and used in the March 8 exchange that resulted in the investigation, the spokesman said.
A computer and scanner were confiscated from their barracks on Camp Foster, the police spokesman said.
