Italian police detain 2 men with US$134 B at Swiss border

[Xisiqomelir]

Dressage

2 Japanese carrying $134 billion worth of U.S. bonds detained in Italy
Thursday 11th June, 06:18 AM JST

ROME —
Two Japanese nationals were detained by Italian financial police last week after trying to enter Switzerland with $134 billion worth of undeclared U.S. bonds, mostly Treasury bonds, an Italian daily said Wednesday. The Japanese consulate general in Milan confirmed that the detention had taken place and said it was trying to confirm with Italian authorities whether the two were indeed Japanese nationals and their identities.

According to the report in il Giornale, two unidentified Japanese in their 50s concealed the bonds, including 249 U.S. Treasury bonds each worth $500 million, in a suitcase with a false bottom that was searched by the Italian authorities June 3 when they were in Chiasso, at the border with Switzerland, about 50 kilometers north of Milan. The daily did not say on what charges they have been detained, but the two may have been detained on suspicion of attempting to take a large amount of securities out of Italy without declaring it because the paper said they had not declared the bonds.

We will now take odds on:

1) Whether the bonds are real or not
2) Whether UBS was going to bank it, regardless of the state of 1)

[[R_H]]

Dressage

We will now take odds on:

1) Whether the bonds are real or not
2) Whether UBS was going to bank it, regardless of the state of 1)

I doubt they were headed for one of the big banks, I'm guessing they would have deposited (?) the bonds in one of the many private banks.

[Archaic`]

A number of Japanese centric blogs are speculating that these are North Koreans using fake Japanese passports. Apparently it's not the first time something like this has been pulled, though I haven't found any references for that in a quick google search.

[J]

If real, one has to wonder which government is trying to covertly dump its US Treasury holdings. $134 billion is an absurdly huge amount of money, even the largest multinational corporations and criminal organizations would require many years to come up with that much free capital and I seriously doubt any of them would put it all in one basket.

If the bonds turn out to be fake then this has to be largest counterfeiting operation ever.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

If real, one has to wonder which government is trying to covertly dump its US Treasury holdings. $134 billion is an absurdly huge amount of money, even the largest multinational corporations and criminal organizations would require many years to come up with that much free capital and I seriously doubt any of them would put it all in one basket.

If the bonds turn out to be fake then this has to be largest counterfeiting operation ever.

The North Korean government has been known to run counterfeiting operations before.

[Bounty]

Incidentally, the Italian government gets to keep 40% of that amount as a fine for the failure to declare the transfer of more than €10.000 across a European border, wiping out their current budget shortfall in one deposit. If the bonds are real it'll be a godsend for the government.

[Straha]

This is one of the most ridiculous things I've seen recently for a number of reasons:

1. Bearer bonds this large were only ever issued to large governments. So the idea that these people could take the bonds to a bank and cash them are just absurd. The banker would look across the table at these schmucks and laugh.
2. If they're counterfeit, WHO THE HELL THINKS THEY CAN GET AWAY WITH COUNTERFEITING THIS MUCH MONEY?! These bonds are worth more than the entire GDP of New Zealand! According to the World Bank this is worth more than the UAE! If this is a counterfeiting scam then this doesn't make fucking sense.
3. If this is a country wanting to sell bonds on the black market, this is the stupidest way to go about it, ever. For one, they could have brought the bonds into Switzerland via Diplomatic Pouch obviating the need for this painfully stupid attempt at smuggling. Second, who the hell is going to buy $134 BILLION dollars of U.S. treasury bonds? Third, if things go wrong (like they may have) they lose everything! The U.S. can just say "Nope, bad bonds. Didn't sell 'em, don't recognize 'em." and what's China or Japan going to do? Say publicly "No, wait. Our bad. Those are ours!"?

This entire thing is absurd. As is the fact that it's gotten no attention from the media at all. You'd think the vacuous mainstream media would be all over this for the "Believe it or not!" factor. And you'd think some real snoops would be on the trail as well (especially because the conspiracy nuts are pointing out that there was $134.5 Billion dollars left in TARP at the end of March...).

Icing on the cake: the individuals haven't been arrested. Then again, if I were the Italians, I wouldn't want to prove this as a forgery either.

[Questor]

Regarding the lack of mainstream media coverage, this was on the news out here in California. The anchors even made most of the points being made here.

[Ace Pace]

Fake?

Speculation about the Italian smuggling case involving $134 billion in purported U.S. Treasury bonds may have been fun while it lasted, but the Treasury Department says today the bonds are bogus.


"They’re obvious fakes," said Steve Meyerhardt, a spokesman for the Treasury's Bureau of Public Debt in Washington.

Two Japanese men were detained by Italian authorities last week after they were caught trying to enter Switzerland with what appeared to be $134 billion in U.S. Treasury bonds in a suitcase.

As I noted in this post on Wednesday, conspiracy theories have run wild in the blogosphere based on the few details that had emerged about the case -- and because mainstream media had largely ignored the story.

Meyerhardt said Treasury authorities could see immediately from photos of the bonds that they were doctored.

What’s more, the package of bonds was said to include "Kennedy" bonds worth $1 billion each. "There is no such thing as a Kennedy bond," Meyerhardt said.

Most important, the total of Treasury paper "bearer" bonds outstanding is a mere $105 million, he said. The Treasury has been issuing bonds solely in electronic form since 1986, although a relative handful of investors never bothered to convert their bearer bonds to electronic form.

And yes, I realize that there’s probably nothing Treasury can say to satisfy people who believe that there’s something more sinister going on here.

The big question, still, is what the apparent forgerers hoped to do with the paper.

I am highly amused.

[J]

This entire thing is absurd. As is the fact that it's gotten no attention from the media at all. You'd think the vacuous mainstream media would be all over this for the "Believe it or not!" factor. And you'd think some real snoops would be on the trail as well (especially because the conspiracy nuts are pointing out that there was $134.5 Billion dollars left in TARP at the end of March...).

Icing on the cake: the individuals haven't been arrested. Then again, if I were the Italians, I wouldn't want to prove this as a forgery either.

No kidding, and it grows more absurd by the day.

First, we have this from Friday. Reuters excerpt

WASHINGTON, June 19 (Reuters) - A purported $134 billion in U.S. government bearer bond certificates seized by police near the Italian-Swiss border are fake, the U.S. Treasury said on Friday.

"Based on the photograph we've seen online, they are clearly fake. And not even good fakes," said Stephen Meyerhardt, a spokesman for the Treasury's Bureau of the Public Debt.

Are you kidding me? Based on photos you've seen online? You'd think a bust of this size would result in a dozen senior Secret Service agents being sent to the scene to verify the authenticity of the bonds ASAP and get to the bottom of the whole deal. Yet it's been two weeks, two weeks and there's still no definitive statement of any sort. They're fake, based on some photos we saw on the 'net, seriously, is this some kind of bad B-movie joke?

Then, there's this from an overseas source

Mystery surrounding 134.5 “fake” billion US dollars seized in Ponte Chiasso remains

After two weeks a US Treasury official says securities were fakes. Italy’s financial police is silent. The case is still baffling and full of discrepancies.

Milan (AsiaNews) – US government bonds seized by Italy’s financial police (Guardia di Finanza) at Ponte Chiasso, an the Italian town on the border with Switzerland, are “clearly fakes,” Stephen Meyerhardt, spokesman for the US Bureau of the Public Debt, is quoted as saying in a news report by the Bloomberg agency. AsiaNews contacted the divisional headquarters of Italy’s financial police in Como, which is responsible for Ponte Chiasso, asking for an explanation but none has come forth yet.

For some days the affair has been in the limelight [1]. Importantly, at the time of the bonds were seized it was not possible to determine whether the US government bonds and US Federal Reserve certificates were real of fakes.

Right after the seizure Colonel Mecarelli, Guardia di Finanza commander in Como, said that for at least some of the securities, especially the ‘Kennedy Bonds’, there were doubts about their authenticity. As for the others, some were so well made that it was hard to tell them apart from real ones.

The seizure was carried out two weeks ago. The bonds were in the possession of two Oriental-looking individuals in their fifties with Japanese passports. The two men, were travelling from Milan to Chiasso, in Switzerland, on a local train used primarily by Italian workers commuting to-and-fro Switzerland for work.

At the customs office both men said they had nothing to declare but a check by financial police agents revealed a false bottom in their respective suitcases, each containing a fortune in US securities.

Also inside the agents found extensive and detailed original bank documents about the bonds.

If the latter were real the two Asian men had in their possession (although not necessarily in their ownership) a big chunk of the US debt which would have made them the fourth largest creditors of the United Sates.

Despite what US Treasury spokesman Meyerhardt said, and until more information is forthcoming from Italy’s financial police in Como for AsiaNews the mystery is still there.

Under Italian law when law enforcement agencies seize fake bonds or counterfeit money they are under the obligation to arrest the bearers. And in order to avoid misappropriation, the agency seizing the material, in this case the financial police, must quickly proceed to its destruction (i.e. incineration).

However, in case of real securities, after the securities holders are identified, the financial police must release them immediately after issuing a statement of confiscation and imposing a fine valued in this case at € 38 billion (US$ 53.4 billion). In this case, why were the two men released right away without any fine imposed?

That is not the only discrepancy. It is not clear how statements by US Treasury spokesman Meyerhardt and Italian financial police can be reconciled. For the former the bonds “are clearly fakes”; for the latter, speaking at the start of this whole affair, some bonds were indistinguishable from the real ones when it comes to quality and detail.

Italy’s Guardia di Finanza has a reputation for being a highly specialised and expert financial police agency. How could it be so easily duped! And if the bonds are “clearly fakes” why did it take US authorities two weeks to find out.

Another discrepancy is the fact that, along with the securities, original and recent bank documents were seized as proof of their authenticity.

If what Meyerhardt says is true, some major financial institutions have been deceived by the securities carried by the two Asian men. This would be a bombshell and raise serious questions as to how many bank assets are actually made up of securities that for Meyerhardt are “clearly fakes.”

If counterfeit securities of such high quality are in circulation the world’s monetary system, let alone that of the United States, is in danger. International trade and exchanges could come to a halt.

Whether it is counterfeit money or money laundering, what happened is potentially more dangerous for the stability of the international system than the results of Iran’s elections.

If the bonds are real it means someone with a lot of cash no longer trusts the US dollar as a reserve currency. If this is the case then it would spell the end of the Bretton Woods system and most likely negatively impact world trade.

Unfortunately the international press and main TV networks, with some exceptions, have ignored the whole affair. These days this is actually the real news.

I have a feeling there's a lot more to this story than we're being told. If the bonds are so clearly fake that it can be seen from some photos on the net, then why hasn't the Secret Service held an official press conference to release a statement to that effect? How hard could it be to hold up one of the fake bonds next to a real one in front of the TV cameras and say "yes, this is clearly a fake, and we're investigating the matter to bring those responsible to justice"?

[Themightytom]

Dressage

2 Japanese carrying $134 billion worth of U.S. bonds detained in Italy
Thursday 11th June, 06:18 AM JST

ROME —
Two Japanese nationals were detained by Italian financial police last week after trying to enter Switzerland with $134 billion worth of undeclared U.S. bonds, mostly Treasury bonds, an Italian daily said Wednesday. The Japanese consulate general in Milan confirmed that the detention had taken place and said it was trying to confirm with Italian authorities whether the two were indeed Japanese nationals and their identities.

According to the report in il Giornale, two unidentified Japanese in their 50s concealed the bonds, including 249 U.S. Treasury bonds each worth $500 million, in a suitcase with a false bottom that was searched by the Italian authorities June 3 when they were in Chiasso, at the border with Switzerland, about 50 kilometers north of Milan. The daily did not say on what charges they have been detained, but the two may have been detained on suspicion of attempting to take a large amount of securities out of Italy without declaring it because the paper said they had not declared the bonds.

We will now take odds on:

1) Whether the bonds are real or not
2) Whether UBS was going to bank it, regardless of the state of 1)

Oh man can we have that back please?