Venezuela nabs 2 for trying to 'Twitter' a run on banks

The suspects, a man and a woman, could face up to 11 years in jail under the terms of a 2001 law punishing the dissemination of false information or the use of any other fraudulent means to disrupt normal banking practices.

The couple in custody "were using the social networking site Twitter to disseminate false rumors with the purpose of destabilizing the national banking system... and trigger a run on banks," said scientific and technical police chief Wilmer Flores, on Thursday.

Police seized from the suspects a cellular phone that included "the first message" sent on Twitter, as well as two external hard drives and other portable memory devices. However, police did not divulge the exact content of the tweets.