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.
You have a good idea there..... Perhaps because dipsticks talk too much? The Jap Dips have one agenda and the BOJ or Ministry of Finance have another? Maybe Japan needs to raise some quick cash?
We defend Japan and they buy our Treasuries. You never hear about Japan abandoning the USD but you hear that about China. So if Japan wants to dump US Treasuries undetected they would do it through an unexpected route. Switzerland.
Just my speculation
China could also want to dump USD quietly. An orderly exit
OFF (Thread) TOPIC:
Note: The following post is a quote:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2262761/posts
EXCLUSIVE: N. Korea general tied to forged $100 bills
Washington times ^ | 06.02.09 | By Bill Gertz (Contact) | Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Posted on June 2, 2009 3:34:27 AM PDT by Perdogg
A North Korean general who is a confidant of the country’s leader, Kim Jong-il, has been identified by U.S. and foreign intelligence agencies as a key figure in the covert production and distribution of high-quality counterfeit $100 bills called supernotes, according to documents and interviews with intelligence officials.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
“But if they are fakes...”
Ditto your post.
Yep.
That's what I'm thinking too - assuming the story is true and that these aren't forgeries - sometimes the most obvious explanation is the right one.
Japan is, IIRC, the second largest foreign holder of US Treasuries (having been recently eclipsed by China.) Lots of folks, myself included, believe that holders of US Treasuries are about to take a bath. Rates inching skyward within the last few weeks might lead one to believe that the bath could come sooner rather than later.
So Japan decides to do some big time dumping of their holdings, but they don't want to do so in the open, as doing so could cause a run. So they will do it through the anonymity provided by the Swiss.
They do have to get the bonds to Switzerland, but they have a fail safe method for doing so... except it turns out not to be fail safe.
My ex-father-in-law was imprisoned in his native Italy for trying to pass fake bonds in Switzerland. This is weird.
THANKS Yaelle for link.
http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=15456&size=A
06/08/2009 15:18
ASIA – ITALY
“US government securities seized from Japanese nationals, not clear whether real or fake”
SNIPPET: “Bonds worth US$ 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.”
Yep, this is interesting Yaelle.
Here’s the source-video poster where that video came from:
http://www.youtube.com/user/itulipdotcom
Is there any other news source stating the the bonds were fake — that you know of?
It was fail safe until someone squealed. Seems like a too thorough border inspection to me. Not a random one
1996 : (COUNTERFEITING & TERROR FINANCING : SUPERDOLLAR CASE : SECRET SERVICE PERSUADES GAO TO DELETE PORTIONS OF A REPORT ON COUNTERFEITING WHICH REFERRED TO RUMORS OF A MIDDLE EASTERN COUNTRY PRINTING US $100 DOLLAR BILLS - SUPERDOLLARS- TO FINANCE TERRORISM) Large-scale investigations involve international gangs, suspects suited to spy novels and questions of national security. One such case, unsolved since the early 1990s, focuses on what is known as a "superdollar," a nearly flawless $100 bill that has been seized in the United States, Asia, Europe and the former Soviet Union. The probe is so secret that the Secret Service routinely declines comment. The agency went as far as persuading the federal Government Accounting Office to delete portions of a 1996 report on counterfeiting that mentioned rumors of a Middle East country printing U.S. dollars to finance terrorism.- -- "Secret Service tracks mystery of fake fortune," By Henry Pierson Curtis, Sentinel Staff Writer, Orlando Sentinel, Saturday, March 1, 2003
SEPTEMBER 25, 2008 THU : (OTHER COUNTRIES HARD AT WORK UNDERMINING USD? ) On Thursday, he [Pres. Bush] met with Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama and other congressional leaders to build a consensus plan for bailing out our financial system. The potentates on the Potomac now are pondering the price tag for saving Wall Street. Unfortunately, corrupt officials in other nations' capitals are also hard at work -- undermining what's left of the U.S. dollar by printing and distributing their own versions of American currency. ...
For more than five years, remarkably accurate duplicates of U.S. $100 bills have been circulating overseas. Called "supernotes" by our Treasury Department, Secret Service and FBI, they are printed on cotton-fiber paper with intaglio printing presses, the same type used by the U.S. Bureau of Printing and Engraving. The source of these nearly flawless notes is hardly a secret. ... Just how some of them arrived on our shores was revealed a few days ago, when former undercover FBI agent Bob Hamer took the witness stand in the Las Vegas courtroom of U.S. District Court Judge James Mahan. While the so-called mainstream media were preoccupied with presidential politics, the Wall Street meltdown and the O.J. Simpson trial up the street from Mahan's court, Hamer -- using audio and video recordings -- revealed how two Chinese nationals and others plotted to smuggle anti-aircraft missiles, narcotics and counterfeit supernotes into the United States. On the tapes, the Chinese conspirators describe how the false bills are manufactured in North Korea and distributed through the Russian Embassy in Beijing to Chinese organized crime figures. One of them boasts of his ties to North Korea. During the course of a three-year undercover operation code-named Operation Smoking Dragon, Hamer purchased $2 million worth of supernotes. The sting also netted 36 indictments and shut down a scheme to deliver 200 Chinese-manufactured QW-2 anti-aircraft missiles, capable of bringing down commercial airliners. It was, to put it mildly, a stunning success -- and completely ignored by those who purport to deliver the "news." .... Last week, the Chinese conspirator who brought the counterfeit bills into the U.S. was found guilty and now faces up to 25 years in federal prison. ------The Secret War on the Dollar (Oliver North) Townhall.com ^ | September 26, 2008 | Oliver North Posted on Friday, September 26, 2008 12:07:08 AM by jazusamo
Organized crime..
“Not the same thing but...”
Yep, interesting.
Fake story. The US government does not issue paper bonds anymore and never issued them in amounts of $500 million. Someone tried to pass some of these off to one of our broker dealer customers. We researched and they are definately fake. I will see if I can find the links that we used at work, but there is no way someone can have a $500 million bearer treasury note, anything that big is book entry.
Is it a fake story or is the article accurate and the bonds are fake?
Very surprised we found out about it. Something this big should have been hushed up by the powers that be. The people catching these two should have been ‘disappeared’.
Okay so this was funny money.
Not sure if the story is fake or accurate. There are definately scammers out there with fake $500 million treasury bonds, so it could be accurate in that sense. The scammers use these bonds as loan collateral, or margin for trading calls. It is amazing that some banks will take them.
Ok.
Governments can send these things with couriers across borders in diplomatic pouches that are not subject to inspection by customs. This is a NGO thing.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.