Update: June 17th: Suitcase With $134 Billion Puts Dollar on Edge: Bloomberg
Update June 16th: We’ve updated this story $134 Billion U.S. Bond Mystery Continues In Italy
Update: Italy’s financial police said they asked the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to authenticate $134 billion worth of undeclared U.S. government bonds found in the false bottom of a suitcase carried by two Japanese travelers attempting to cross into Switzerland. A determination is expected within a few days.
Thanks to the sharp Italian police, two counterfeiting crooks got nabbed. If money can be counterfeited so can bonds. $134 Billion worth, no less. And, there is probably a bunch of counterfeiting creeps back home and North Korea and who knows where else. Thanks, Italy!!!
Counterfeiting? Where is the evidence or suggestion of that? How do you know that these were not real? There is so much corruption going on, I think they could be real and there is something more disturbing with this happening…
…that’s $134,000,000,000. If they are real. Who are these guys and whose money is it? What are they up to? Will we ever find out? Where is this story in the mainstream media?
[…] the financial novelist who could come up with one this good? “2 Japanese Carrying $134 Billion In U.S. Bonds Detained In Italy…” Say, that’s some flash roll, huh? Wonder if they are real or […]
Diane — you and everyone else reading this had better hope these are counterfeit. If they are real, only governments have this kind of money to play with. Which begs a couple of very interesting questions….someone is dumping huge amounts of dollars, or exactly what have those U.S. Government printing presses been up to? Either way, your dollars are about to become worth less (worthless??).
[…] Two Japanese Carrying $134 Billion in U.S. Treasury Notes (and 10 ‘bond Kennedy’ of the … This sounds more than a little bit fishy. If these bearer bonds weren’t counterfeited, then somebody in the US Treasury has a lot of explaining to do. Oh, and here is a bit of interesting follow-up commentary on this case. (The latter link courtesy of Frank K.) […]
I did not read anything about them being counterfeit, did I miss something? My question is where did they come from and for whom are they intended? Even in our hyper-inflated world, $134B is still a pile of money.
These notes are probably not counterfeit at all. These two men are the Japanese version of “coyotes” or “mules”; two of a team of such whose regular job it is to smuggle real treasury notes into Switzerland where they are deposited for benefit of the gangsters best known as the Federal Reserve, private bankers who have pillaged America for nearly a century now. If any industry should legitimately qualify for nationalization it is the Fed.
Diane…honey.. Can you be this naive? First off they (italian border patrol) were obviously tipped off. Second of all what evil institution lives in Italy? Think.
The bonds were not counterfeit. Anybody who has lived a day in their life could figure that out.
I bet these bonds are real. The Japanese are trying to dump their US bonds discretely because they know the US Federal Reserve has embarked on a policy of massive inflation. Better to get rid of them now before the Chinese decide to dump their Treasuries and destroy the dollar. Japan’s statement about continuing to support the dollar as the world’s reserve currency immediately after the incident supports this theory.
I’m sure the Fed has been a part of many behind the scenes shenanigans. This incident might be one of them. It will be interesting to see if the SEC authenticates these bonds. I think that either outcome has the potential to disrupt currency markets. If bonds are being counterfeited regularly in this type of denomination, that is a scary thought. Likewise, if China or Japan was caught trying to secretly divest themselves of 134 billion in bonds, that could send a panic through the marketplace.
Thanks Greenspan, Bernanke, Paulson, Geithner and many others for getting us into this mess. You have destroyed our currency and our economy, and the US citizens and the rest of the world are about to figure out how badly.
Oh, the spin doctors are going to have their hands full with this one. Japan’s government is doing the wise and prudent thing and jumping the dollar ship before it utterly sinks.
Strange to hear that two Japanese “businessmen” were
“detained.” Unusual that they were picked for such a thorough search, as well. I wonder how they knew about them. But I don’t have to wonder much.
I’d be very interested in knowing whether these two Japanese had Korean surnames. Pyongyang is certainly looking to hide assets, as as the money was undeclared, one might wonder if U.S. or ROK intelligence tipped off authorities to search the bags…
You don’t COUNTERFEIT 500 million dollar or ONE billion dollar Treasury notes. Obviously, the ONLY thing that CAN be done with them is deposit them in a numbered SWISS Bank account for a corrupt politician. THIS IS NOT DRUG MONEY, even the biggest drug dealers do not have funds in THAT denomination.
They are NOT COUNTERFEIT. You don’t take counterfeit bonds to the SWISS BANKS. That is like taking counterfeit fifty dollar bills to a federal bank. THEY KNOW THE DIFFERENCE.
It’s real, and the LACK of media coverage strongly suggests corruption at the highest media controlling levels. THIS SHOULD HAVE HAD AT LEAST AS MUCH COVERAGE AS WATERBOARDING GOT.
I DEMAND A SENATE INVESTIGATION INTO THE MATTER. They investigate corruption at a thousandth of the amount discovered here.
why is the mainstream media not reporting anything about this? Does anyone find it at all interesting that the amount of smuggles bonds is equal to the amount of “TARP” funds not yet dispursed? Nice for the Italians, if these documents are legitimate, they get to keep 40%!
Swiss-made granite skis are quite expensive. My theory: 2 Japanese business men on a foreign shopping trip. Try our chocolate bullion while you are here.
The bonds are fake. I read the italian press release and they say the bonds are from 1934. in 1934 with that sum you could buy the entire world. more, this kind of bonds never existed. and bonds with the 1934 date surface from time to time ( all fake). the story goes the the CIA wanted to help anti comunist guerillas and send a plane with the money. first there was no CIA back there, and second when you send money you send either in local currency or real dollars. I don’t think an underground movement will go to o bank and say I need change for 500 000 000 $.
this is just a scam made by 2 stupid people.
[…] 2 Japanese Carrying $134 Billion In U.S. Bonds Detained In Italy Updated Story Via Times Online […]
Obivously some reading this report aware of the rarity of these financial instruments and the past activities of the North Koreans. Only governments have the resources to create or have this much money in bonds. The U.S. Treasury’s response to questions concerning this incident as report on the Fox News Channel is that they have no response.
Sad to say (because there are so many arguments against the “counterfeit hypothesis”: Ann Fisher made the best summary! … and the joke hypothesis is ruled out by the official report issued to media by the Italian financial police headquarters!) on Italian media nothing new has been published on this HUGE affair, with the notable exception of an article on June 12 by a small independant (even if it is a Christian Roman Catholic organization, it is not strictly following Vatican news policy) online Asian news provider
http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=15505&size=A
My feeling is that US, Italian, Japanese and likely Swiss goverments soon ruled to cover-up this record smuggling.
Jezz, all you people jumping the gun, they are car company CEO’s!
Or they won the lottery.
Or they are just collectors, you know, like OJ!
There is no way that these are fake and anyone who would believe otherwise is completely deluded by propoganda. Who or where would anyone exchange a note for 500 million or 1 billion for anything without it being verified. This screams of wholesale robbery by the people or entities behind the federal reserve or the effort of Japan to drop their dollar assets in exchange for the euro or other currency preceeding a collapse of the dollars value. Who tipped off the Italians, I don’t know but if it was Japan dropping dollars I could presume maybe the CIA used some intelligence to possibly protect some big hitters here who depend on the stable value of the dollar and didn’t want Japan to get them to switzerland.
These cannot possibly be authentic. As a previous commenter noted, US bonds have not been issued in paper form for nearly 30 years. Neither could one cash of %500 million bond. They are probably meant to create a false impression to gullible parties of some sort of financial crisis es as part of a scam.
[…] 2 Japanese Carrying $134 Billion In U.S. Bonds Detained In Italy […]
And folks here in the U.S. are wondering why Rep. Ron Paul (TX) is pushing his House Bill 1207 that would require the Federal Reserve be audited, which to date it has NEVER been! Please urge your Congressman to co-sponsor Mr. Paul’s bill. It already has 187 (maybe a few more) co-sponsors, but over 200 will all but guarantee it gets to the floor of the House where it will be debated and, likely, passed.
If questions are not answered quickly about this by our government, I would become suspicious of who, what, where and why. I hate to speculate and believe in a conspiracies but…Could this become a buffer for our president if all he has done fails just to save face? Instead of blaming Bush or Ronald Regan he can blame the forgeries made. We need answers now!
Maybe Japan is involved in a conspiracy to dump billions of dollars by having them put into a single suitcase…
or maybe two guys that happened to glance at the bonds once tried to counterfeit them, screwed it up, got caught like dumbasses, and are going to spend a very long time in prison.
Which do you think is more likely?
Assuming the bonds are not counterfeit, does that mean that the Japanese Treasury is trying to dump US bonds, by smuggling them into Switzerland to sell them anonymously, in order to not alarm the US Treasury market?
If the bonds are not counterfeit, this is not a good sign for the dollar and US interest rates.
There may be another possibility. What if the bonds are counterfeit and they were meant to be found by the Italian authorities? Anyone that was short the dollar would have a great windfall. Away follow the money.
Say a large currency trader, ie George Soros, was short the dollar and long on other currencies, he or they would make a lot of money if they knew that this event was going to happen. It is not like he hasn’t done this before to other governments, ie the British pound. The two Japanese guys would make it appear that the Japanese government was dumping dollars covertly. They may have not known about the bonds in their suitcases.
The US dollar would be discredited and the Japanese government would appear to be responsible. The whole story about the Italian mafia is just a cover story. The unidentified boogy man did it, PLEASE !!!
These bonds are counterfeit. I recognize them from the photo. There was a scam running a few years ago with the same bogus paper. If you can get a closer look you’ll see what I mean. They are a (very) shoddy photoshop of an old silver certificate with a bunch of extra zeros added in. Some clowns were trying to sell the same thing in Japan a while back. Probably thinking to try their luck in Switzerland.