Posted on 06/10/2009 10:45:08 PM PDT by Xenophon450
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.
..... But if they are fakes, then we conclude that the conterfiets are incredibly well done. Especially the 249 pieces from 500 million are stuff by professionals: high-quality watermark, no trimming. A job only an International gang is able to put in place......
Thanks Shady Ray for the link.
Let me post the complete note and the translator link.
http://www.google.com/language_tools?hl=en
#
Thanks to Shady Ray for pointing to this link.
Note: The following text is a quote:
SEQUESTRATI A CHIASSO TITOLI USA PER NOVANTASEI MILIARDI DI EURO
Milano, 4 giu. (Adnkronos)
Duecentoquarantanove bond della Federal Reserve statunitense, del valore nominale di 500 mln di dollari ciascuno, piu’ 10 bond Kennedy da 1 mld di dollari ciascuno, occultati nel doppio fondo di una valigia, per un totale di ben 134 mld di dollari, pari a oltre 96 mld di euro.
E’ quanto hanno sequestrato alla stazione ferroviaria internazionale di Chiasso, al confine tra Svizzera e Italia, funzionari della Sezione Operativa Territoriale di Chiasso, in collaborazione con i militari della Guardia di Finanza del Gruppo di Ponte Chiasso, nel corso dei controlli volti al contrasto del traffico illecito di capitali.
I valori erano posseduti da due cinquantenni giapponesi scesi alla stazione ferroviaria di Chiasso da un treno proveniente dall’Italia che, al momento del controllo doganale, hanno sostenuto di non avere nulla da dichiarare.
Un’accurata verifica dei bagagli ha consentito invece di trovare i titoli Usa, occultati sul fondo di una valigia, in uno scomparto chiuso e separato da quello contenente gli indumenti personali.
Oltre ai titoli, i due giapponesi trasportavano una cospicua documentazione bancaria in originale.
Per i bond e la documentazione che li accompagnava, anch’essa sottoposta a sequestro, sono in corso indagini volte a stabilirne autenticita’ e provenienza. Qualora i titoli risultassero autentici, in base alla vigente normativa, la sanzione amministrativa applicabile ai possessori potrebbe raggiungere i 38 miliardi di euro, pari al 40% della somma eccedente la franchigia ammessa di 10mila euro.
Vedi le altre news
Credible explanation. But, Japan could carry these certificates in via diplomatic pouch, take them to the Swiss bank and wheel and deal away. Why use the Sandy Burglar method?
The Guardia di Finanza, (/ˈgwardja di fiˈnantsa/) (English: Finance Police) is an Italian police force under the authority of the Minister of Economy and Finance. As it retains military status, like the Carabinieri, it is part of the Italian Armed Forces. The Guardia di Finanza maintains over 600 boats and ships and more than 100 aircraft to fulfill its mission of patrolling Italy's territorial waters.
Notice the date on the press release: June 4, 2009...surely this hasn't been out there that long...something ain't right here. I am sure our brave and selfless media will get right on it to bring the little people of the world the truth. /SARC
“I am sure our brave and selfless media will get right on it...”
Nope, but some bloggers probably will pick it up.
Thanks for the links.
But, years later the old story still looks mighty weird. That original Cap Hill Blue / Japan today thing went off right when Hillary Clinton was overseas in a war of words against Condi Rice on multipolarism.
JULY 8?, 2003 TUE? : (HILLARY CLINTON IN EUROPE CRITIQUES BUSH ADMIN 'UNIPOLARISM' -- See COLIN POWELL? ) During the Frost interview, Clinton criticized what she referred to as Bush's "unipolar" view of international relations, using a term often employed by Moscow, Beijing and Havana in their condemnations of U.S. foreign policy. Clinton stated that she gives her support to a "multipolar" foreign policy, a term Russia, Communist China, and Cuba have used for at least six years to describe their vision of a "new world order," with the United States subsumed to the United Nations. ------ 'Hillary: "New Political Icon" Clinton's European Triumph[Benedict Rodham dissing CIC in Old Europe],' International News Analysis Today ^ | July 8, 2003 | By Toby Westerman, www.inatoday.com
JUNE 26, 2003 : (CONDOLEEZA RICE SPEECH CRITICIZING MULTIPOLARISM -- See HILLARY CLINTON "RESPONSE?" FROM EUROPE ) "..Some argue that Europe and America are more divided by differing worldviews than we are united by common values. More troubling, some have spoken admiringly -- almost nostalgically -- of "multipolarity," as if it were a good thing, to be desired for its own sake. The reality is that "multi-polarity" was never a unifying idea, or a vision. It was a necessary evil that sustained the absence of war but it did not promote the triumph of peace. Mulit-polarity is a theory of rivalry; of competing interests -- and at its worst -- competing values. We have tried this before. It led to the Great War -- which cascaded into the Good War, which gave way to the Cold War. Today this theory of rivalry threatens to divert us from meeting the great tasks before us. Why would anyone who shares the values of freedom seek to put a check on those values? Democratic institutions themselves are a check on the excesses of power. Why should we seek to divide our capacities for good, when they can be so much more effective united? Only the enemies of freedom would cheer this division. ..."-------~ Dr. Condoleezza Rice, June 26, 2003
And at a time this advisory group was assembled. All this going on at the same time then, looks freakish now that we know that Powell was ultimately goig to support Obama:
JULY 8 & 9, 2003 Tue & Wed : (STATE DEPT : 'ADVISORY GROUP ON PUBLIC DIPLOMACY IN THE ARAB & MUSLIM WORLD' HOLDS ITS FIRST MEETING - IN SECRET? --- See COLIN POWELL, AALCPAC) The State Department put allies of Rep. Jim Moran on a sensitive propaganda advisory panel. Secretary of State Colin Powell has signed off on a special public diplomacy panel packed with liberal opponents of the president - as well as with a Saudi-funded pollster and a former lawyer for a fundraising group shut down in 2001 for allegedly financing international terrorists. The new 14-member Advisory Group on Public Diplomacy in the Arab and Muslim World, a panel of the State Department's U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, held its first meetings in secret July 8 and 9, without a public announcement of its members, the New York Sun reports. among the members: A former CNN official, donors to the Bill Bradley and Gore-Lieberman presidential campaigns, a dovish Israel Policy Forum figure, and two supporters of the Arab American Leadership Council Political Action Committee, which funded the campaigns of Rep. Jim "Sluggo" Moran (D-Va.) and former Reps. Earl Hilliard (D-Ala.) and Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.). The membership was chosen to represent a "variety of different positions," including Republicans, according to a spokesman, but some are concerned that the group may be politically biased against the president's tough anti-terrorism strategy. Panel members need not file any federal disclosure forms. ------- "State Department packs public diplomacy panel with controversial members ," center for Security Policy, Headline Story, Sunday, July 20, 2003 , http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/index.jsp?section=today
Ok, I went to the translator and read this article.
Looks real enough here:
...and here’s the office it came from:
I should have said, here’s the office web site the article came from (re post no. 150)
$134b paid off to AsianX to purchase less than 134b worth of 30 year notes being auctioned now so that it isn’t obvious to the masses that the bottom has fallen out of Treasuries before the people in the know can pull their $ out before the bloodbath.
FOREX-Dlr falls ahead of next Treasury auction hurdle
http://www.reuters.com/article/usDollarRpt/idUST25664920090611
ANY QUESTIONS?
No. Don’t pull them. Both stories seemed improbanble, and both involve the Italian government & Japan Today, what I was posting was just for trivia buffs’ curiousity. :-)
Ok, well continuing on then...
Note: The following news brief is a quote:
http://www.libero-news.it/adnkronos/view/131081
OMO: SEQUESTRATI A CHIASSO TITOLI USA PER 96 MLD DI EURO
Milano, 4 giu. (Adnkronos) - Duecentoquarantanove bond della Federal Reserve statunitense, del valore nominale di 500 mln di dollari ciascuno, piu’ 10 bond Kennedy da 1 mld di dollari ciascuno, occultati nel doppio fondo di una valigia, per un totale di ben 134 mld di dollari, pari a oltre 96 mld di euro. E’ quanto hanno sequestrato alla stazione ferroviaria internazionale di Chiasso, al confine tra Svizzera e Italia, funzionari della Sezione Operativa Territoriale di Chiasso, in collaborazione con i militari della Guardia di Finanza del Gruppo di Ponte Chiasso, nel corso dei controlli volti al contrasto del traffico illecito di capitali.
I valori erano posseduti da due cinquantenni giapponesi scesi alla stazione ferroviaria di Chiasso da un treno proveniente dall’Italia che, al momento del controllo doganale, hanno sostenuto di non avere nulla da dichiarare. Un’accurata verifica dei bagagli ha consentito invece di trovare i titoli Usa, occultati sul fondo di una valigia, in uno scomparto chiuso e separato da quello contenente gli indumenti personali. Oltre ai titoli, i due giapponesi trasportavano una cospicua documentazione bancaria in originale.
Per i bond e la documentazione che li accompagnava, anch’essa sottoposta a sequestro, sono in corso indagini volte a stabilirne autenticita’ e provenienza. Qualora i titoli risultassero autentici, in base alla vigente normativa, la sanzione amministrativa applicabile ai possessori potrebbe raggiungere i 38 miliardi di euro, pari al 40% della somma eccedente la franchigia ammessa di 10mila euro.
Looks real. At least they weren’t waiting until after 3 on a friday to put out the info like Obama.
Remember that Shishani case a while back?
Yep.
OPINION - SPECULATION:
Yes, the first thing I thought of was counterfeiting.
His checks were only worth 12 million. These treasury amounts make that look like a pittance.
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