Smuggling Or Counterfeit-Printing?
Ok, this was rumored several days ago, but now I can find actual news reports - at least, outside the US:
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.
Those sound like Bearer Bonds - at least the Kennedy ones do.
We no longer issue those (nor does pretty much anyone else) for obvious reasons - they're essentially money and can be had in VERY large size, making them great vehicles for various illegal enterprises.
But folks: This is $134.5 billion dollars worth.
If they're real, what government (the only entity that would have such a cache) is trying to unload them?
If they're fake, this is arguably the biggest counterfeiting operation ever, by a factor of many times. I've seen news about various counterfeiting operations over the years that have made me chuckle, but this one, if that's what it is, is absolutely jaw-dropping.
The cute part of this is that if the certificates are real Italy just got a hell of a bonanzatheir money laundering laws provide for a statutory 40% penalty for failure to declare instruments and cash in excess of $1 0,000 Euros, which means they'd garner a close-to-$40 billion dollar windfall.
That ought to help their budget problems!
Notice, by the way, that the US Media has totally ignored this story - even though the securities in question are allegedly US instruments.
Gee, I wonder why? Might the authorities know they're real and be just a wee bit nervous that disclosure of a sovereign attempting to covertly dump nearly $140 billion in debt could cause a wee bit of panic, given that we're running nearly $200 billion a month in deficits?
Inquiring minds want to know what's really going on here.
