$134 Billion in US Bonds seized from Japanese nationals in Italy

annarborgator · Post by **annarborgator** » Thu Jun 11, 2009 2:58 pm

It's either one of the highest-value counterfeiting cases of all time...or a supremely frightening case of some nation doing its best to very quietly unload tons of USD denominated bonds....sucks that not a single American media outlet has the story that I've seen...

Milan (AsiaNews) – Italy’s financial police (Guardia italiana di Finanza) has seized US bonds worth US 134.5 billion from two Japanese nationals at Chiasso (40 km from Milan) on the border between Italy and Switzerland. They include 249 US Federal Reserve bonds worth US$ 500 million each, plus ten Kennedy bonds and other US government securities worth a billion dollar each.

Italian authorities have not yet determined whether they are real or fake, but if they are real the attempt to take them into Switzerland would be the largest financial smuggling operation in history; if they are fake, the matter would be even more mind-boggling because the quality of the counterfeit work is such that the fake bonds are undistinguishable from the real ones.

What caught the policemen’s attention were the billion dollar securities. Such a large denomination is not available in regular financial and banking markets. Only states handle such amounts of money.

The question now is who could or would counterfeit or smuggle these non-negotiable bonds.

http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=15456&size=A

MinGator · Post by **MinGator** » Thu Jun 11, 2009 3:50 pm

Holy shit! $134 Billion!?

MinGator · Post by **MinGator** » Thu Jun 11, 2009 3:53 pm

Oh and I meant to mention that the US media will pick this up when they run out of Brittney (or insert the ridiculously overpaid drug addicted star here) stories.

TheTodd · Post by **TheTodd** » Thu Jun 11, 2009 5:22 pm

I just want one of those $1 b Kennedy bonds.

Tipmoose · Post by **Tipmoose** » Fri Jun 19, 2009 7:39 am

All clear guyzzz!!!! Yay!!! They're all bogus! Thanks to the Italian Mafia.

Nevermind that the two guys carrying them have 'been released' and the authorities 'don't know where they are.'

How...convenient.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/82091ec2-5c2f-11de-aea3-00144feabdc0.html

a1bion · Post by **a1bion** » Fri Jun 19, 2009 8:08 am

This story was BS on its face. All you had to do was look up the last year the Treasury issued bearer bonds to figure that out.

annarborgator · Post by **annarborgator** » Fri Jun 19, 2009 12:52 pm

Agreed, unless you consider it possible that we've ever issued debt off the books. (Highly unlikely, I imagine)

The bigger question at this point is...why would a fairly sophisticated forgery operation make a boneheaded mistake on the dates? Or was it not a mistake? Considering that these forgeries would likely be useless even in a scam...why were they printed? And why were the two fall guys in Italy sticking out like a sore thumb?

It's almost like someone's sending us a message....mess with us and we'll make the bonds passable next time--you now see that we have the capability and expertise.

:RemovingTinFoilNow:

MinGator · Post by **MinGator** » Fri Jun 19, 2009 1:47 pm

doesn't make sense to forge to such authenticity if they didn't think they could pass them. I have to imagine it is no small task to forge these things.

annarborgator · Post by **annarborgator** » Fri Jun 19, 2009 2:05 pm

^^Unless you happened to get your hands on a high-tech printing press or at least high quality plates....there's enough instability in enough areas of the world to allow a government-owned press to fall into unsavory hands, IMO.