By Silvia Ognibene and Steve Slater SIENA/LONDON, Italy (Reuters) - Italian prosecutors said they have ordered the seizure of 1.8 billion euros (1.56 billion pounds) of assets from Japanese bank Nomura <8604.T> as part of an investigation into a suspected fraud involving troubled lender Monte dei Paschi di Siena <BMPS.MI>.

By Silvia Ognibene SIENA, Italy (Reuters) - Italian prosecutors have ordered the seizure of 1.8 billion euros (1.56 billion pounds) of assets from Japanese bank Nomura <8604.T> as part of a probe into a suspected fraud involving troubled lender Monte dei Paschi di Siena <BMPS.MI>. Prosecutors in the city of Siena said they were investigating Nomura's former top executive in Europe, Sadeq Sayeed, and Raffaele Ricci, managing director in fixed income sales for the EMEA region at the Japanese bank.

Italian police on Tuesday seized 1.8 billion euros ($2.3 billion) destined for Nomura and placed the Japanese bank's former CEO Sadeq Sayeed 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 euros 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.

SIENA, Italy (Reuters) - Italian judges ordered the seizure of more than 1.8 billion euros (1.5 billion pounds) of assets as part of a probe into suspected fraud against troubled lender Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena <BMPS.MI>, prosecutors said on Tuesday. In a statement, prosecutors in the city of Siena said most of the assets to be seized were funds held by Banca Nomura International, the Milan branch of Japan's Nomura International <8604.T>.