World Bulletin / News Desk

Greek police on Monday said they had located eight "suspect" packages similar to mail bombs sent by a domestic militant group to key economic institutions last week.

Last week, a mail bombs sent to the International Monetary Fund's offices in Paris exploded and injured a secretary. A second bomb sent to the German finance ministry was intercepted by security.

The investigation so far suggests that both the IMF and the German finance ministry bombs were sent by a far-left group called the Conspiracy of Fire Nuclei, which police thought they had mostly dismantled in 2011.

A source close to the investigation in Paris last week said the mail bomb consisted of two tubes of black powder and a makeshift electric trigger.

A Greek police source on Monday said the eight additional packages had been scanned and "found to contain a similar mechanism."

Conspiracy of Fire Nuclei, which is considered a terror organisation by Washington, sent mail bombs to foreign embassies in Greece and to European leaders in 2010.

The outfit, which has links to the Italy-based Informal Anarchist Federation (FAI), has only claimed last week's German finance ministry hit.

In 2011, several of its members, many of them very young, were convicted of "participating in a criminal organisation" and given long prison sentences.

Three years later, the group announced its return and has since been committing sporadic attacks.