Posted on 06/12/2009 3:35:25 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
For those who love a mystery, this story has more than one. Italian authorities seized more than $130 billion in bonds from two Japanese nationals as they presumably prepared to cross the border into Switzerland. No one can tell at the moment whether the bonds are genuine or counterfeit:
Italy’s financial police (Guardia italiana di Finanza) has seized US bonds worth US 134.5 billion from two Japanese nationals at Chiasso (40 km from Milan) on the border between Italy and Switzerland. They include 249 US Federal Reserve bonds worth US$ 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.
First mystery: why has this gone almost completely unnoticed this week? Asia Times reported it first, and it was confirmed by the Italian news agency Adnkronos and Business Insider, the only American media outlet to take an interest so far. Adnkronos doesn’t include the story in its English-language service, however; I had to Babelfish the webpage to be sure it confirmed Asia Times. Wouldn’t the discovery of $134.5 billion in American bonds in a false bottom of a suitcase smuggled through Italy into Switzerland seem a bit newsworthy in the US?
Second mystery: Are the bonds real? If so, how did the two Japanese travelers get their hands on so much convertible cash? As the Asia Times report mentions, the denominations involved are usually used in state-to-state transactions. They would have had to steal them from a government — or perhaps a government gave them the bonds to convert in secret, covered by the Swiss insistence on secrecy in banking.
Third mystery: If the bonds are counterfeits, then how many more high-quality counterfeit US bonds are floating around Asia and Europe? Who is funding their creation, and why? Counterfeits on this scale would affect bond prices and weaken the dollar. North Korea has attempted low-rent counterfeiting of $100 bills, which the UN helped hide for a while, but this seems beyond their capabilities — and potentially a lot more destructive to the US. It would take quite a bit of support to counterfeit state-to-state bonds, almost certainly requiring some governmental involvement.
Hopefully, the press follows up on this case. I love a good mystery, but this one needs to get solved ASAP.
Update: Examiner blogger Craig Meister wonders whether the Japanese wanted to start dumping the dollar.
Japan Probes Report Two Seized With Undeclared Bonds (Update2)
Curious - why smuggle US bonds. Isn’t that kind of risky for the miniscule reward?
It shouldn't be hard to find who originally bought them and if they still have them or not. And if not who they sold them to and so on.
In order to successfully counterfeit them, they'd have to have access to the logs of where these things have been to appear legit.
The whole thing is odd in many, many ways...
Another thread:
2 Japanese carrying $134 bil worth of U.S. bonds detained in Italy
I fyou’re gonna counterfeit sumpthin, how ‘bout sumpthin w/ some real value?
... there is some sarcasm involved...
Perhaps it will be shown that the two are NK operatives as suggested on similar posts. With enforceable UN Sanctions around the corner against NK, perhaps it was a attempt to deepen the eraser head’s pocketbook before the bottom falls out.
If NK ,...one would lean toward the bonds being counterfeit....
Perhaps these are lost or misplaced bonds. I’d feel bad for whomever lost them... could be some poor and needy country, you know, scrapping from paycheck to paycheck, that lost them.... like North Korea or Zimbabwe.
FYI bond ping
It won’t be long before U.S. Bonds aren’t worth stealing.
Did anyone happen to think of George Soros in connection with this?
Sounds like a reasonable assumption to me E.
Wasn’t there a report not too long ago where there was a large amount of cash missing from the FED or TARP? I am going to try to dig it up. I’m just sayin’
WellyP posted this on another thread about the same topic....this is what I was referring to:
Any connection?
http://www.jrdeputyaccountant.com/2009/02/bank-run-which-shall-not-be-named-91808.html
On Thursday Sept 15, 2008 at roughly 11 AM The Federal Reserve noticed a tremendous draw down of money market accounts in the USA to the tune of $550 billion dollars in a matter of an hour or two.
Money was being removed electronically.
The treasury tried to help with $150 Billion.
But could not stem the tide.
It was an electronic run on the banks
The treasury intervened but had they not closed down the accounts they estimated that by 2 PM that afternoon. Within 3 hours, $5.5 Trillion would have been drawn out of the money market system of the United States and would have collapsed within 24 hours the world economy.
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