If anyone has a magnifying glass, let me know if they read "United States of Amelica Tleasuly Bond"
Posted on 06/11/2009 2:07:42 PM PDT by 1rudeboy
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.
If the certificates were real, for Italy it would be like hitting the jackpot. The fine alone would amount to US$ 38 billion, five times the estimated cost of rebuilding quake-devastated Abruzzi region. It would help Italy’s eliminate its public deficit.
If the certificates are fakes the two Japanese nationals could get a very lengthy jail sentence for fraud.
As soon as the seizure was made the US Embassy in Rome was informed. Italian and US secret services were called in to assist the Italian financial police.
Some important international financial newspapers had already reported on the existence of ‘funny money’ circulating on parallel, i.e. unofficial, financial markets.
For AsiaNews a few points need considering:
1. When it comes to Italy the world press has tended to focus on Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi’s personal problems rather than on stories like the bonds smuggling affair which has been front page on Italian newspapers.
2. The fear of counterfeit bonds and securities has spread across Asia with the result that real securities are also considered with suspicion.
3. During the Second World War several countries at war printed and put in circulation perfectly counterfeit enemy money. It is also historically established that some central banks, like the Bank of Italy 65 years ago, issued the same securities twice (identical registered number and code). This way they could print more money with legal tender than they officially declared. The main difference though is that 65 years ago the world was involved in a bloody war, which is not the case today.
Nothing to worry about.
Obama has already destroyed the bond market.
Just ask the GM bondholders what they think.
Yea, that caught my eye too.
To be fair, the Fed was rumored last December to be considering selling their own bonds. But the idea brought forward so much controversy that the Fed appeared to drop it.
Fake
There are no such half billion dollar securities
They might have been taken to Switzerland to try and use as collateral on a trading account
Pure speculation, but maybe North Korea is involved?
They both try and counterfeit US money, and through selling drugs, etc.,. must reap in huge sums.
With the succession in N. Korea in doubt, and with war a possibility, any number of individuals in the ruling circles there might want to hedge their best and move their loot.
I have never seen a physical long bond, only the short ones. I know that the short bonds only come in denominations as high as $1 million.
But, when countries like China hold almost a trillion dollars, and Japan well over a half trillion dollars in long bonds, is it not possible that there's denominations greater than $1 million?
It seems very far-fetched to me as well, but who knows.
Look very carefully at the bottom right corner. If it says, “Printed in the DRNK”, chances are they are fakes. If they are signed by Kim Jun Il, that’s a dead give away.
Here’s a few ways to interpret that, in order of decreasing probability and increasing hilarity:
1. The reporter and editor are so clueless as to let such an obvious mistake make it to publication.
2. The report is accurate because the counterfeiters were so dumb they wrote the wrong thing on the papers.
3. The Federal Reserve covertly worked with Asian governments to secretly issue Fed-Bonds to bypass Congressional authorization and bungled the thing Inspector Cluseau style.
Actually, the whole mix of events - from massive numbers of bearer bonds to the unprofessional manner of movement to the apparently Japanese nationals - sounds more like a North Korean counterfeiting operation than anything else. If so, I hope the other deliveries that we didn’t catch are obvious forgeries.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2269335/posts?page=178#178
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.
If anyone has a magnifying glass, let me know if they read "United States of Amelica Tleasuly Bond"
North Korea seems likely. They have used Japanese nationals for espionage. They have engaged in counterfeiting US instruments in the past.
If they are issued by Obama they are definitely fake. Us money is currently not worth anything and the US government is the biggest counterfeiter on the planet.
In addition, these can be traded between other countries without ever having to come back to the US. That’s why counterfeit $100 bills worked just as well as the real ones in places like Uzbekistan and Myanmar until someone wanted to buy US goods.
Well, the first thing that makes this story dubious is that US Treasury bonds (30-year bonds) quit being issued as bearer bonds on paper in 1982. That means that the holder would have to have accumulated quite the stash of these from the early 80’s - and a limited set of years: 1980, 1981, 1982.
But the 30-year was most heavily issued from 1977 until the 30-year was pulled from offering at all by the Clinton administration, who “compressed” the US debt into the shorter end of the curve.
OK, so how much bearer bond debt was out there? The best indication I can give you comes from the Depository Trust Company. In 1991, they had 600 people clipping coupons on bonds held by the DTC in trust for their owners and mailing in the coupons - on about 21 million bonds. As of today, the number of bearer bonds still valid and on deposit with the DTC is about 700,000 and the face amount is about $3.5 billion (and dropping rapidly). So that gives you an idea of the relative rate of drop-off of the instruments among people who are above-board and legit.
Further, when you send in a coupon to get your payment on the debt, or you send in the bond to recover the face value, the US Treasury takes down all manner of financial ID for US citizens. The only way you’re going to make one of these bonds good is to take it to a bank that is willing to present it to the US Treasury without invoking your name as the true owner.
And here, I think I’ve found the US Treasury’s report on the bearer debt outstanding:
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/pd_bearregsec.pdf
There isn’t (according to the Treasury) enough bearer debt outstanding to meet the figures in the press.
As to not breaking up the shipment: See above. They amount they have is close to, or above, the total amount of US Treasury Bearer debt left outstanding from the period in which it was issued. There isn’t enough paper outstanding.
Paper certs of non-paper or registered bearer bonds are like transporting your tax returns from 10 years ago. Why bother?
BTW — here’s what a real bearer bond looks like:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_07Vo5mDNg18/SjG0o3s-hAI/AAAAAAAAACw/qZFWJmppPak/s1600-h/bond1small.jpg
The interest “coupons” on the bottom of the bond would be clipped off and sent in to receive payment, hence the missing coupons on the left.
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