US$ 134.5 billion seized at Italian Border

[deepSearch]

Re: US$ 134.5 billion seized at Italian Border

Thanks, I will! ;) (I don't know for sure, usually they don't tell their true colors openly, but yes, maybe such or similar. Greetings and good week.

[Shakespear]

Re: US$ 134.5 billion seized at Italian Border

This comment from another board is interesting

"One fact you've missed. Over that weekend the G-8 Finance Ministers were meeting in Italy. Yosano (the powerful FM of Japan was there, and shortly before the bond bust occurred Yosano publicly re-affirmed the Japanese intention to continue supporting the market for US Treasuries. This statement instantly drove the 10 year bond down in yield from 3.86 to 3.80.

Suppose the bonds were a "good faith gesture" paid by the US to Japan? Japan is struggling with its own economy right now, and is desperately trying to find the funds for economic stimulus. The US would discourage Japan from selling Treasuries for that purpose, but might be willing to give it bearer bonds, which it could move to Switzerland and use as collateral for loans.

Way out there, sure. But the coincidence of the G-8 Finance Ministers meeting should not go unnoticed."

[Andreuccio]

Re: US$ 134.5 billion seized at Italian Border

This comment from another board is interesting

If this were true, why smuggle them? Surely Japan's Finance Minister has access to diplomatic bags.

[thunderdownunder]

Re: US$ 134.5 billion seized at Italian Border

It just puzzles me a bit that after some considerable time nothing has been announced.
If they were fake is would be known by now( Fake! that amount? It is the GDP of a small country. That would never fly)
If they were real is would be known by now( Real and smuggled = WHF. Fedex would be easier and insured.)

Very Weird for such a huge amount of money
Silence is damning!!

Maybe they want it to just go away - In reality I get the feeling something is wrong because of the amount of time that has past. I would lay a wager that quite a few parties to this are running around covering bases /gaps and ass.

It just seems to be a story that does not want to be told - in Truth - literally.

[deepSearch]

Re: US$ 134.5 billion seized at Italian Border

That is exactly what I think. In this case silence tells A LOT! You just said it better than I could.

[D-Mack]

Re: US$ 134.5 billion seized at Italian Border

June 17 (Bloomberg) -- It’s a plot better suited for a John Le Carre novel.

Two Japanese men are detained in Italy after allegedly attempting to take $134 billion worth of U.S. bonds over the border into Switzerland. Details are maddeningly sketchy, so naturally the global rumor mill is kicking into high gear.

Are these would-be smugglers agents of Kim Jong Il stashing North Korea’s cash in a Swiss vault? Bagmen for Nigerian Internet scammers? Was the money meant for terrorists looking to buy nuclear warheads? Is Japan dumping its dollars secretly? Are the bonds real or counterfeit?

The implications of the securities being legitimate would be bigger than investors may realize. At a minimum, it would suggest that the U.S. risks losing control over its monetary supply on a massive scale.

The trillions of dollars of debt the U.S. will issue in the next couple of years needs buyers. Attracting them will require making sure that existing ones aren’t losing faith in the U.S.’s ability to control the dollar.

The dollar is, for better or worse, the core of our world economy and it’s best to keep it stable. News that’s more fitting for international spy novels than the financial pages won’t help that effort. It is incumbent upon the U.S. Treasury to get to the bottom of this tale and keep markets informed.

...

This is still a story with far more questions than answers. It’s odd, though, that it’s not garnering more media attention. Interest is likely to grow. The last thing Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke need right now is tens of billions more of U.S. bonds -- or even high-quality fake ones -- suddenly popping up around the globe.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...d=a62_boqkurbI

Letterman gets over 1600 stories on google while this gets a handful


BIGGEST FINANCIAL CRIME IN HISTORY - NOT REPORTED BY MAINSTREAM PRESS

[deepSearch]

Re: US$ 134.5 billion seized at Italian Border

It is big story, no matter which way (fake or real), but it is "too big a story to tell" so either will never reach the main media or it will once they sanitize it... unless they can't, then silence will keep telling it.
To me this only shows how tight MSM is controlled. There is not the slightless leak in main papers. Tough eh?

[seanm123]

Re: US$ 134.5 billion seized at Italian Border

US Governement says bonds siezed in ITaly are fakes.

June 18 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. government bonds found in the false bottom of a suitcase carried by two Japanese travelers attempting to cross into Switzerland are fake, a Treasury spokesman said.
“They’re clearly fakes,” Stephen Meyerhardt, a spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of the Public Debt in Washington, said yesterday. “That’s beyond the fact that the face value is far beyond what’s out there.”
Italy’s financial police last week said they asked the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to authenticate the seized bonds, with a face value of $134 billion. Colonel Rodolfo Mecarelli of the Guardia di Finanza in Como, Italy, said the securities, seized in Chiasso, Italy, were probably forgeries.
Meyerhardt said Treasury records show an estimated $105.4 million in bearer bonds have yet to be surrendered. Most matured more than five years ago, he said. The Treasury stopped issuing bearer bonds in 1982, Meyerhardt said.
Had the notes been genuine, the pair would have been the U.S. government’s fourth-biggest creditor, ahead of the U.K. with $128 billion of U.S. debt and just behind Russia, which is owed $138 billion.
According to the Italian authorities, the seized notes included 249 securities with a face value of $500 million each and 10 additional bonds with a value of more than $1 billion, as well as securities purported to be “Kennedy” bonds. Meyerhardt said no such securities exist.
Nowadays, Treasury securities are issued electronically. The U.S. started converting all of its marketable debt from paper to electronic form in the 1980s.


http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...d=adc1HD7mWY4A

[D-Mack]

Re: US$ 134.5 billion seized at Italian Border

US Governement says bonds siezed in ITaly are fakes.

.....

Meyerhardt said Treasury records show an estimated $105.4 million in bearer bonds have yet to be surrendered. Most matured more than five years ago, he said. The Treasury stopped issuing bearer bonds in 1982, Meyerhardt said.
Had the notes been genuine, the pair would have been the U.S. government’s fourth-biggest creditor, ahead of the U.K. with $128 billion of U.S. debt and just behind Russia, which is owed $138 billion.
According to the Italian authorities, the seized notes included 249 securities with a face value of $500 million each and 10 additional bonds with a value of more than $1 billion, as well as securities purported to be “Kennedy” bonds. Meyerhardt said no such securities exist.
Nowadays, Treasury securities are issued electronically. The U.S. started converting all of its marketable debt from paper to electronic form in the 1980s.


http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...d=adc1HD7mWY4A

Is it true that in 1985 they also issued them?

(there was an exception carved out for Treasury instruments issued to non-US residents in 1985 - a time of high deficits)
http://seekingalpha.com/instablog/23...instream-press

[Tybee Island]

Re: US$ 134.5 billion seized at Italian Border

The absence of hard questions makes this a very soft reply for the US via the Bureau of Public Debt. What wasn't said is more troubling and suggests that far more is a foot here.

For example:
Did you or anyone from your office personally inspect the bonds in question?

Was the Secret Service dispatched to Italy to investigate the bonds? If so when? If not, why not?

Why is it that an event that occurred two weeks ago on June 3, are you only now refuting the the authenticity of these bonds?

Can you provide a full accounting of all such bonds issued historically, if so, then do so, if not, why not?

Will you state for the record that no such bonds have ever been issued by any past administration whether recorded for the public record or not?

Why aren't the supposed "counterfeiters" still in custody?

Why were their identities never reported? What are their names? Nationalities? Current Whereabouts? Pictures of their passports?

Why aren't they being prosecuted? Isn't counterfeiting US Bonds still illegal? Or is that those caught in the month of June get a free "get out of jail card," and are able to slip into the night whithout any trace of their whereabouts?

[makimanos]

Re: US$ 134.5 billion seized at Italian Border

Don't believe everything. If that is the case why was reported so late? And who are these Japanese?

[metalman]

Re: US$ 134.5 billion seized at Italian Border

Don't believe everything. If that is the case why was reported so late? And who are these Japanese?

maybe it took them a long time to be sure.

[FRED]

Re: US$ 134.5 billion seized at Italian Border

Rise of the Demagogues: The case of the $134.5 billion in fake U.S. bonds

June 18, 2009, iTulip

What happened: In a time when public trust in government and media are at an all time low, conspiracy theories flourish, creating a broad platform for demagoguery. The recent story of the $134.5 billion in fake U.S. bonds is a case in point.

In News of the Weird: June 10, 2009 we were the first U.S. website to cover the case of the $134.5 billion in fake U.S. government bonds after one of our readers located the story on a German site. We posted the first video about it the same day, June 10. Other sites picked it up the next day and put various conspiracy spins to it. Since then the story has been picked up by hundreds of sites around the world. Conspiracy theories quickly took the limelight. More …

[D-Mack]

Re: US$ 134.5 billion seized at Italian Border

I remember the story about the Supernotes from a respected German paper

CIA

On January 7, 2007, the Sunday edition of the German Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) challenged the official American statement and the accusations on North Korea. Their research suggested that the real source of the superdollars is a secret printing facility close to Washington, D.C., and owned by the CIA. According to FAZ the forged dollars are used to finance secret CIA operations. Printing the money directly would then evade any congressional oversight of these operations. Presently, there has not been an official response by the U.S. government to these accusations.[26]

More doubt concerning the nature of these supernotes arose on January 10, 2008, in the McClatchy Washington Bureau. The article makes mention of the increasing doubt of testimonies and sources, and of the CIA's involvement. Klaus Bender, an author of works on counterfeiting, claims that the notes are of such high quality that they could only be produced by a government agency such as the CIA. The article also goes on to say that the United States is no longer explicitly accusing the North Korean government of producing supernotes.[1]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdollar

Do we know more about the quality?

Is the paper real or is everything fake and other questions come to my mind ?

[Shakespear]

Wow,this can be played from many angles. But in the end it will be blamed on the North Koreans, and who can prove otherwise

How about consider this book which poses some tough question and includes documentation !!!

http://www.amazon.com/Gold-Warriors-.../dp/1859845428