2 Japanese carrying $134 bil worth of U.S. bonds detained in Italy

Belfast

That is a lot of money if it is real.

"Two Japanese nationals were detained by Italian financial police last week after trying to enter Switzerland with $134 billion worth of undeclared U.S. bonds, mostly Treasury bonds, an Italian daily said Wednesday. The Japanese consulate general in Milan confirmed that the detention had taken place and said it was trying to confirm with Italian authorities whether the two were indeed Japanese nationals and their identities.

According to the report in il Giornale, two unidentified Japanese in their 50s concealed the bonds, including 249 U.S. Treasury bonds each worth $500 million, in a suitcase with a false bottom that was searched by the Italian authorities June 3 when they were in Chiasso, at the border with Switzerland, about 50 kilometers north of Milan. The daily did not say on what charges they have been detained, but the two may have been detained on suspicion of attempting to take a large amount of securities out of Italy without declaring it because the paper said they had not declared the bonds."
rest of detail in article
http://www.japantoday.com/category/crime/view/2-japanese-carrying-134-bil-worth-of-us-bonds-detained-in-italy

http://www.adnkronos.com/IGN/Assets/Imgs/D/Dogana_sequestro_gdf--400x300.jpg

TheInquisitor

Haha imagine if they confiscate the money!

"So dear i lost some money"

"Oh no how much"

"$134 billion but we can recover"

Belfast

also on wikipedia
Chiasso financial smuggling case
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiasso_financial_smuggling_case

$134 Billion U.S. Bond Mystery Continues In Italy
http://www.nationalterroralert.com/updates/2009/06/16/134-billion-u-s-bond-mystery-continues-in-italy/

Belfast

$134 Billion In Seized US Bonds Are Fakes – Washington

June 18, 2009

"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."
http://www.nationalterroralert.com/updates/2009/06/18/134-billion-in-seized-us-bonds-are-fakes-washington/