Posted on 06/29/2009 6:29:42 AM PDT by Red in Blue PA
Ever since two middle-aged men with Japanese passports were caught in Italy this month trying to smuggle a purported $134.5 billion in United States government bearer bonds into Switzerland, the Internet has been abuzz with theories.
Was the Japanese government, or some other creditor nation, secretly trying to dump Treasury bonds to drive down the value of the dollar? Had the Italian mafia stolen the equivalent of 1 percent of the American gross domestic product, using the paper, which supposedly was instantly convertible into cash, to run a giant scam?
Adding spice was the whole Bond — James Bond — aspect of the tale. A crowded customs checkpoint near the Alps; two men traveling on a local train, professing that they had nothing to declare; and a false-bottom suitcase containing United States government bonds made out in stratospheric denominations.
In all, the Italian financial police and customs guards confiscated 249 paper bonds, each supposedly worth $500 million, and 10 bonds with a face value of $1 billion each.
Too bad the bonds were fake.
“The whole thing is a total fraud,” Stephen Meyerhardt, a spokesman for the Treasury Department, said Thursday. “They don’t look anything like real securities, which in any case were never issued in any of those denominations.”
The highest denomination ever issued by the Treasury Department was $10,000, he said. The Italian financial police claimed some of the paper was “Kennedy bonds” from the 1930s, but no such bonds ever existed. And the total of Treasury bearer bonds still outstanding is a mere $105 million; the Treasury has been issuing bonds in electronic form since 1986.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnbc.com ...
Also unknown are the whereabouts of the two men, who were released after being stopped in early June. Italian law does not call for the criminal arrest of persons found to be taking funds without permission to another country. It might have been another matter if the police had determined immediately that the bonds were false.
“The men were questioned, but not arrested,” said Naoki Oyakawa, an official at the Japanese consulate in Milan, which contacted judicial officials in Como after reading about the seizure in the Italian papers.
He said the two men had valid Japanese passports, but he would not elaborate further on their identities. “We don’t know where they are now,” he said.
And the answer is...........
Might even be difficult to charge the two men with any violation of the law if the bonds were such obvious fakes, and these men weren’t trying to sell them or convert them to cash.
How about this scenario: the two men were simply making a “dry run” to see if they *could* smuggle the bonds in successfully, OR they suspected a “leak” in whatever organization they belong to, and did this to smoke out the leak?
The claim from Obammie’s commies that this was mafia counterfeit is absurd.
Only national governments have this level of funds to invest in US Bonds/T-Bills. If it is counterfeit, it is at the government level (e.g., NK). For individuals to try to cash out these Bonds would be like someone from your neighborhood going to the local bank with a stack of $5,000 bills and asking to have them cashed for $20’s. It may raise just a specter of suspicion.
But those trying to fence the Bonds were Japanese nationals (allegedly). Hard to believe Japanese reps would be helping NK.
Sounds to me like it was Japan trying to (secretly) unload a bunch of their US Bonds, either because they greatly fear the US Dollar is about to become worthless (which it is), or because they are preparing for major engagements in the near future and want to stock up on commodities (like the ChiComs are doing).
JMHO
Too bad the msm's, especially cnbc's, integrity has been incredibly corrupted and whatever it says can't be trusted.
This is just one issue we should be focused on....not on MJ & the endless coverage. I just wish America would WAKE UP!
But not so hard for some few North Koreans to pass for "Japanese," particularly in some small burg in the Alps.
Besides, you saw the part about the bonds (little "b") being obvious fakes? e.g., a "Kennedy" bond from the '30s when the only "Kennedy" bonds from that era would have had to do with smuggled whiskey...
Does Italy routinely search luggage of people leaving the country?
Do European countries in general search luggage of people crossing national boundaries?
If you had some obviously fake bonds, would you hide them in a false-bottomed suitcase? Why?
Some reports say that the "Kennedy" bonds were from the 1930's. That makes no sense -- but some reports say that the "Kennedy" bonds carried pictures of the Space Shuttle. Which lie are we expected to believe? Not both, surely.
I think it's all a tremendous house of cards.
In the first place, governments do not deal in bearer bonds, which these were. In the second place, these are forgeries. They were in denominations not offered in the period when they were supposed to have been issued, or were completely imaginary to begin with, i.e. some of them were in "Kennedy Bonds", a non-existant article. Finally, this case is small potatoes. In 2001 authorities in the Philippines seized a counterfitter with $2 trillion in counterfit bonds. link.
Something Columbo would never let go of(I can see him now, scatchin' his head, notebook in hand, just askin', "One more question").
We will never know the truth about the purloined bonds.
Not so sure. You don’t know what bonds the Treasury might have issued behind your back.
SAY I'm a terrorist and I need to know more about American bond issuance. So, I pull a phony heist and no harm done. AND THEN, some Treasury Dept worker tells CNBC EXACTLY what I needed to know, namely THIS:
"The highest denomination ever issued by the Treasury Department was $10,000, he said. The Italian financial police claimed some of the paper was “Kennedy bonds” from the 1930s, but no such bonds ever existed. And the total of Treasury bearer bonds still outstanding is a mere $105 million; the Treasury has been issuing bonds in electronic form since 1986."
“The whole thing is a total fraud,” Stephen Meyerhardt, a spokesman for the Treasury Department, said Thursday. “They don’t look anything like real securities, which in any case were never issued in any of those denominations.”
I do not believe Treasury at all. Can you imagine the implications if these are indeed real?
They have been trying to keep this story off the news cycle for weeks now.
We are in real trouble folks. From what I understand the two gentlemen have vanished.
I have contacts in the region who take that very train into Switzerland. The Italian’s put their best border patrol officers on this train and search every possible item in detail due to this type of activity. There are tax evasion (VAT) issues that the guards are looking to find.
Europeans do not search peoples luggage routinely when leaving one country to another as they are all EU countries. Switzerland is not in the EU.
I am not familiar with the false bottom suitcase as the one shown in the police photo is a simple leather portfolio not hard luggage but a soft leather pouch with handles.
The whole story causes more questions than it answers:
- Organized crime would not have all of the bonds sent by one courier or in one shipment.
- Why have foreigners, who stick our in a crowd, carry these items. They would attract attention.
- Japanese “mules” released as not a criminal offense??
- Bonds not verified as original or fake
- Dollar amount to large to be credible
- Low news coverage
- No updates on story by Secret Service??
http://www.secretservice.gov/press_release.shtml
***Adding spice was the whole Bond — James Bond — aspect of the tale.***
Maybe they were a 1960’s spoof of the real Bond. Anyone remember the book series about the spy “Israel Bond”
Thanks for the info on border patrols.
I suspect Hans Gruber.
Except this is pretty well known in the big banking world. These bond scams have been going on for years. The reason they work is some gullible people believe there is a whole underground economy in these bonds, and the fact they paid 10 or 20 million for a bond worth 700+ million (with coupons) overcomes their common sense.
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