British woman seized and handcuffed in Las Vegas casino after travel agent gave her fake dollars

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A British holidaymaker was seized and handcuffed in America after she was wrongly given counterfeit money by the UK's biggest travel agent.

Company director Gail Chandler had obtained 5,000 dollars at a Thomson bureau in Kent shortly before a trip to Las Vegas last month.

But a few days into her visit she was apprehended by security guards at a casino who suspected she was using fake notes.

She was handcuffed and marched through the crowded casino hall to a room downstairs where police were waiting to interrogate her.

Miss Chandler, 58, was ordered to sit on a wooden bench and over the next three hours was given a full-body search, asked whether she possessed any needles and refused a glass of water despite it being a very hot day.

Detectives even called in Secret Service agents to search her hotel room.

She was finally released after persuading officers that the notes had been issued by her local travel agent.

However, Miss Chandler, from Hoo, near Rochester, was so traumatised that she did not leave her hotel for the next two days and has been put off travelling to Las Vegas where she normally goes every year.

'It was utterly humiliating,' she said.

Search: Miss Chandler used the forged dollars in Harrah's casino and was marched to a room downstairs for interrogation

'I felt sick and I could not stop coughing all the time the police were questioning me.

'I did not know whether I had been arrested and whether I would be allowed to come back to Britain.

'The police kept checking my handcuffs to make sure I could not escape.'

Miss Chandler, a director of an advertising company, had obtained her currency from Thomson in Hempstead Valley, near Gillingham, where she had booked her holiday.

Her money included several new 100 dollar bills and it was two of these that led to her ordeal after she exchanged them for smaller currency with a floor girl at Harrah's casino.

Thomson has apologised and is investigating.