US government securities seized from Japanese nationals, (real or fake?)

[thundley4]

US government securities seized from Japanese nationals, not clear whether real or fake
Bonds worth US$ 134.5 billion are seized. This is the largest financial smuggling case in history. But are they real? Concern over ‘funny money’ or counterfeit securities is spreading in Asia. The international press is silent.

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.

In order to stop money laundering Italian law sets a ceiling of 10,000 euros per person for importing or exporting money without declaring it. The penalty for violating the law is 40 per cent of the money seized.

  Link

I'll admit that I know next to nothing about international finances, but whether real or fake, this could cause serious problems for the US. (I think)

[5412]

  Link

I'll admit that I know next to nothing about international finances, but whether real or fake, this could cause serious problems for the US. (I think)

Hi,

I TIVO'd Glenn Beck and you are exactly right, either way that many billions of dollars is the work of a country not an individual.  There are only a few countries in the world who have that much of our debt and if they are trying to unload it, that is a bad thing.  If they are printing up phone bonds then they are trying to destroy our currency.  The guy on Beck said basically that if it were counterfeit, it would be the work of a government because people just do not have that kind of money.

Of course the mainstream media will not follow it....

regards,
5412

[Gratiot]

Of course the mainstream media will not follow it....

regards,
5412

It's been reported in the msm, although perhaps not given the importance it may hold.

The US has declared that they were clever forgeries, after the Italian authorities declared they couldn't immediately declare them genuine or counterfeit. 

While conspiracy theorist and dollar demisers have been rattling off that they were genuine, and the act of the Japanese government wanting to secretly rid some of their dollar holdings without causing a panic.  With everyone deciding, after they were caught, that it'd be best for everyone to pretend that they were forgeries.

[Airwolf]

Either way its not good this happened. Now those two guys are missing and no one knows where they are. I'm betting they offed themselves or somebody helped them.

[bijou]

Italian Mafia cashes in on fake T-bills
By FT reporters
Published: June 19 2009 03:00 | Last updated: June 19 2009 03:00
One summer afternoon, two "Japanese" men in their 50s on a slow train from Italy to Switzerland said they had nothing to declare at the frontier point of Chiasso. But in a false bottom of one of their suitcases, Italian customs officers and ministry of finance police discovered a staggering $134bn in US Treasury bills.

Whether the men are really Japanese, as their passports declare, is not entirely clear, but Italian and US secret services working together soon concluded that the bills and accompanying bank documents were most probably counterfeit, the latest han-diwork of the Italian Mafia.

Few details have been revealed beyond a June 4 statement by the Italian finance police announcing the seizure of 249 US Treasury bills, each of $500m, and 10 "Kennedy" bonds, used as inter-government payments, of $1bn each. The men were apparently tailed by the Italian authorities.

Yesterday the mystery deepened as an Italian blog quoted Colonel Rodolfo Mecarelli of the Como provincial finance police as saying the two men had been released. The colonel and police headquarters in Rome both declined to respond to questions from the Financial Times. ...

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f200bec6-5c69-11de-aea3-00144feabdc0.html


This is a very odd case indeed.

[Gratiot]

I'm quite curious now, why they were being tailed by Italian authorities.  As well, as if true, why there were released.  Very peculiar, and I doubt we'll ever be truthfully informed as to why.