134 billion dollars in US bonds, seized at the Italian border

Daithi 1

Never heard about this one at the time (2 years ago). Just wondering what the meaning of this is, maybe someone can shed some light on it. (not a skeppie)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttSmZknU9mI

Notice that Beck says FOX contacted the Treasury Department about this case, and received an official blow-off letter in response -- basically saying they had "no comment" on this 134 billion dollars in US bonds, seized at the Italian border, as it was "evidence in an ongoing investigation."

Beck then goes on to put up the numbers of which countries hold the largest numbers of US bonds. In order, they are China at 763.5 billion, Japan at 685.9 billion, the United Kingdom at 152.8 billion, Russia at 137.0 billion and Brazil at 126.0 billion.

Based on the public, unclassified numbers, 134.5 billion dollars in US bonds could only have been produced by Russia, the UK, Japan or China... no one else. The amount of money is so huge that if Russia produced it, they would only have 2.5 billion dollars in US bonds left over!

Joe Wiesenthal, the editor of BusinessInsider.com, said that whether this was a government dumping its bonds or a counterfeit operation, it was "gigantic" in scope and "unlike anything we've ever seen -- not just in size but also in sophistication."

According to Wiesenthal, in order to counterfeit these bonds, "it would be the kind of technology you would expect only a government to have." Wiesenthal also believes the 1934 issuance date on the bonds suggests they may be elaborate forgeries.

Pablo Sanchez

Yeah, they were fake http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/06/19/usa-italy-counterfeit-idUSN1944623120090619 . Its completly daft, the fact that anyone would use FOX news as a source, especially conspiracy nuts, just shows how weak it is. The video posits that a country may be looking to 'dump' US bonds, a number of problems with this, there is already a secondary market for bonds, why would any country use this as a method to physically move bonds around, it makes no sense.

(this completly ignores the fact that bonds are numbered and you still own them if you happen to lose the certificate, they are completly traceable)

Jeboa Safari

I remember reading about this, the bonds were fake. Its unusual though, I can't imagine anyone with access to the funds to buy these bonds being stupid enough or even capable of actually doing so. There's a story from 2002 of the FBI arresting 4 men in Denver trying to sell $250 billion worth of bonds, and it mentions that it was the second case in Colorado that year, although I haven't seen the story anywhere else.

An operation leading to the Oct. 9 break-up of a scam to sell $250 billion in bogus bonds in metro Denver sounds like the plot from a spy movie.
One of the psuedo-bond sellers claimed to be an ex-Israeli secret service agent, according to government documents.
The bonds themselves were hyped as U.S. government bonds issued in 1934 to help anti-Communist and anti-Japanese government factions. This batch of bonds supposedly came from a plane that crashed in a Philippine jungle after being shot down by the Japanese.
The Philippines, as well as Nigeria, are starting points for several financial schemes, according to Bruce Wimmer, Denver manager of Pinkerton Consulting & Investigations Inc.
After the fake brokers made a deal with an undercover agent, they asked the agent to promise the transaction wasn't a "government sting operation."
A few weeks ago, U.S. Customs and Secret Service agents arrested four men in Greenwood Village, saying they tried to sell the undercover agent the fake bonds.
The men � Johnny Tal and Stephen Feldman of California, Nathan Bickley of Dallas and Jerry Tidmore, who has no known address � were charged with one count each of trying to sell fraudulent securities, according to arrest warrants. If convicted, each faces 25 years in prison and $250,000 in fines.
On Oct. 23, the men were indicted by a federal grand jury in Denver. The indictment cements the initial charges against them.
"This is the second case of this kind this year in Colorado, where someone was trying to sell these kinds of bonds," said Jeff Dorschner, spokesman for the Denver office of the U.S. Attorney's Office.
Colorado, as well as Texas, Michigan and Pennsylvania, get the second-highest number of complaints about such scams, according to Pinkerton. The most complaints come from Florida, New York and California.
The federal government's efforts to catch the bond sellers started in June of this year, according to an affidavit attached to the arrest warrants. A Colorado customs agent named D. Burke got a tip that Feldman was trying to sell fake Federal Reserve bearer bonds for a client, a former Israeli secret service agent called Yoni.
The customs agent, saying his name was Dan Burman with NCO/Capstone Consulting in Greenwood Village, started dealing with Feldman by phone, fax and e-mail. At first, Feldman wanted to sell Burke more than $1 trillion in bonds in $1 billion denominations.
While those numbers' great size make most legitimate buyers suspicious, some people still get sucked into such scams.
"These things don't succeed very often, but they do succeed," said Wimmer. "I don't know how many times we tell people if something looks too good to be true, it probably is."
In late July, Burke offered Feldman $100 million for the bonds. But Feldman turned him down, and the deal died.
Starting in August, Burke's source started getting calls from Yoni, who again tried to sell the bonds. The source again referred Yoni to NCO/Capstone and Burke.
About this time, federal agents discovered Yoni was really Johnny Tal, and his Agoura Hills, Calif., address really belonged to a U.S. Postal Annex. Agents also found a warrant for Tal's arrest for violating his federal probation.
Dealings between the parties resumed in September when Yoni proposed to sell 249 bonds, which he said were worth $25 billion, for the $100 million Burke originally offered for all the bonds. Burke agreed to the deal.
As the sale moved along, Burke repeatedly asked about the bonds' background and authenticity. He was given a report stating the bonds passed infrared radiation and ultraviolet light tests, and were genuine. The brokers also said a 1996 law designated such bonds historical documents not recognized by the federal government, but since these were bearer bonds, they didn't need to be registered with the government.
On Sept. 23, Yoni requested a letter from Burke stating their deal wasn't a sting operation. Yoni explained he feared the government was trying to "entrap" him because it didn't want people redeeming such a large amount of bonds. The next day, Yoni faxed Burke a four-page contract entitled "Warranty, Non-Sting and Confidentiality Agreement."
The deal was set to be finalized Oct. 2 at NCO/Capstone's local office, but the day before, Yoni told Burke he couldn't sell him the bonds because they weren't approved by the government. Yoni promised to sell Burke a different set of bonds worth $250 billion for the same price.
With a new agreement, a new deal date was set for about 11 a.m. on Oct. 9 at Burke's office. Tal, Feldman, Bickley and Tidmore met Burke there, and after the deal was done, the four were arrested.
Just before the arrest, Tidmore joked he wasn't going to guarantee the bonds' worth "cuz then you pull out your credentials and say, hey, I'm FBI or I'm Secret Service."

http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/stories/2002/10/28/newscolumn3.html?page=all

Jonny7

More than a few thinly disguised bearer bond scams about. I've personally seen notes to the tune of billions, and they keep trying it. In our case, the protagonist(s) were actually calling us threatening to sue for not accepting them, so our fraud team just liaised with the FBI, didn't hear from the scammers since.

Jeboa Safari

Jonny7 wrote: »

More than a few thinly disguised bearer bond scams about. I've personally seen notes to the tune of billions, and they keep trying it. In our case, the protagonist(s) were actually calling us threatening to sue for not accepting them, so our fraud team just liaised with the FBI, didn't hear from the scammers since.

Do they get much success scamming people?

sbsquarepants

Maybe it was Don Johnson?
He's got previous in this lark:D

PureClaas

What was the huge scam the germans were at in wwII was it fake british or american bonds they were forging or what?

Pablo Sanchez

Yeah they printed a huge amount of Sterling, Economic sabotage was part of their 'Total war' concept, in fact i think a movie was made about the subject.

Daithi 1

Cheers lads, good info. See, skeptoids and trufers can work together :pac:

PureClaas

Yeah that was the one.

Was it true that there master forger was actually jewish and actually created the perfect copy. I forget what happened that it didn't work. I think the prisioners sabotaged the operation.

I wonder could this be a terrorist attack on America through the financial system. After all wasn't the twin towers an attempted attack on America's financial system also??

Jonny7

Jeboa Safari wrote: »

Do they get much success scamming people?

The very clever ones we'll never know about - but otherwise, scamming with high value bonds is next to impossible. Doesn't seem to stop them trying though.