Last June, Italian authorities seized more than $134 billion in U.S. treasuries found in a false bottom suitcase carried by two Japanese travelers attempting to cross into Switzerland. The two men somehow disappeared and the case is allegedly still under investigation. In June, a U.S. Treasury spokesman claimed the treasuries were fake.
How does it happen that two Japanese travelers caught with more than $134 billion worth of phony treasuries just disappear? But it doesn't end there.
Yesterday Bloomberg reported the Secret Service is examining more than $100 billion of U.S. government bonds confiscated in northern Italy in August, just two months after the $134 billion of allegedly fake securities were seized.
The Secret Service is analyzing whether the bonds taken in August may be counterfeit, said a spokeswoman for the U.S. embassy in Rome. Italy’s financial police in Varese, north of Milan, arrested two individuals carrying the securities in a briefcase, according to a person involved in the case.
The two men currently are in custody as prosecutors in the town of Busto Arsizio carry out their investigation. The seized notes include securities with face values of $500 million and $1 billion.
In June, Gregory Dail noted the following inconsistencies regarding the first $134 billion:
1. Although the smugglers have been identified in the press as “Japanese nationals”, there has yet to be any third party confirmations, formal charges made or a release of the culprit’s identities. Asian and Japanese press outlets are reporting the suspects were released shortly after they were detained.
2. A Bloomberg article regarding this story, the seized bearer bonds allegedly were dated as of 1934. Since bearer bonds in denominations of $500 million did not exist in 1934, the bonds were deduced as fake. The police are still waiting for a declaration regarding the bonds’ authenticity from the SEC, and the populous is speculation how to spend their 40% windfall.
Something smells about this declaration. How can the quality of the forged bearer bonds be so meticulous that they “are indistinguishable from the real ones”, yet the counterfeiters are so ill-informed as to not date the bearer bonds appropriately?
3. Bloomberg reported that there is no known existence of the alleged Billion-dollar Kennedy bonds. This defies any logical explanation. The expert counterfeiters would have made more of the $500 million denomination, indistinguishable from the real thing, instead of making 10 bonds in denominations of $1 billion a piece in a bearer bond that never existed.
4. On March 30, 2009, the US Treasury Department announced that USD $134.5 billion remained in its Troubled Asset Relief Program [TARP]. The same amount as the seized bearer bonds was $134.5 billion.
5. The two well-dressed Japanese men traveled a well known financial smuggling route where they would stick out like sore thumbs, defies logic.
6. Then we have this June 18 article from the Financial Times, that questions whether the men are really Japanese, as their passports declared, and may be the work of the Mafia.
7. Officials in Tokyo were nonplussed. Takeshi Akamatsu, a Japanese foreign ministry press secretary, said Italian authorities had confirmed that two men carrying Japanese passports had been questioned in the bond case but Tokyo had not been informed of their names or whereabouts.
“We don’t know where they are now,” Mr. Akamatsu said.
Kyodo News reported on June 19 that the two Japanese men had been released. The Japanese consulate general in Milan said...it has confirmed that the two men who were briefly detained by Italian police after attempting to enter Switzerland with $134 billion worth of U.S. bonds were Japanese citizens. The men were released later that day after an Italian lawyer provided fidelity guarantee for them.
The Italian authorities continue to probe how the two obtained the bonds and why they were trying to take the fake securities to Switzerland.
8. The Italians are now saying the forged bonds appeared shoddy and some of them had face values that were nonexistent. The Italian authorities said they wonder why the securities were produced because the bonds cannot be used even for fraud in view of their poor quality. In pictures the bonds appear new, crisp and clean!
They were first described as being “meticulous” work and “indistinguishable” from real ones but we are also to believe that they now “appeared shoddy.”
Turner Radio Network (TRN) announced June 20 that it had confirmed information the two Japanese nationals are “employees of the Finance Ministry of Japan.”
TRN has now confirmed the two men arrested were trying to secretly dump Bonds as ordered by the government of Japan because the Japanese government feared that the U.S. government would be unable to repay its debts. Despite the assurances from Japanese Finance Minister Kaoru Yosano that Japan has complete confidence in the U.S. Treasury has confirmed the upon the serial numbers of the Bonds, part of the $686 billion of U.S. debt officially held by Japan.
The last couple of days the Italian press was abuzz with suggestions on how to spend their forty-billion dollar windfall despite the claims [of the treasuries] being counterfeit.
Under Italian law Italy gets to keep forty percent (40%) of the smuggled bonds. Now TRN reports that the US and Japan are trying to negotiate with Italy for return of the Bonds but because of the astonishing amount of money involved and Italy is refusing to negotiate.
From the World’s perspective the U.S.A. can’t even identify its own bonds, has very nervous creditors, and U.S. mainstream media is unable to perform impartial journalism and are worthless as an honest and viable news source.
Max Keiser's Take on the Bonds.
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