134 billion usd in a suitcase

Discussion in 'Economics' started by flyingdutchmen, Jun 12, 2009.

  1. Two Japanese individuals were caught in Italy with 249 undocumented 500 million dollar US bonds, trying to make their way into Switzerland

    is Japan trying to dump 20% of it's US holdings onto the black market or has someone counterfieted a massive amount of cash?



    http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20090612a2.html
     
  2. It's a scam. An old scam. The bonds aren't even counterfeits, they're complete fabrications.

    There is no $134B. Hell, it's not even the biggest scam of this kind, as the exact same bonds showed up in a $2.5 TRILLION scam of the same nature about five years ago.
     
  3. Agassi

    Agassi

    Gee. i wish those people can give me just 1 mm to fund my trading account:D
     
  4. You are one of the few people that have it right. Anyone who knows about numismatics, notaphily and scripophily knows that what has been described in the news reports are complete fabrications.

    It is clear the the $134B of fabrications were going to be used in some type of scam or con job. Could even be part of a Nigerian 419 scam or prime note scam.
     
  5. how is this a scam? I mean there are no individuals, and not really any corporations that have access to this type of money. Only a handful of banks. What type of scam did they expect to pull and on who?
     
  6. Here is a Bloomberg article from Friday on it

    By Sonia Sirletti and John Glover

    June 12 (Bloomberg) -- Italy’s financial police said they asked the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to authenticate U.S. government bonds found in the false bottom of a suitcase carried by two Japanese travelers attempting to cross into Switzerland.

    The bonds, with a face value of more than $134 billion, are probably forgeries, Colonel Rodolfo Mecarelli of the Guardia di Finanza in Como, Italy, said today. If the notes are genuine, the pair would be 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.

    The seized notes include 249 securities with a face value of $500 million each and 10 additional bonds with a value of more than $1 billion, the police force said on its Web site. Such high denominations would not have existed in 1934, the purported issue date of the notes, Mecarelli said. Moreover, the “Kennedy” classification of the bonds doesn’t appear to exist, he said.

    The bonds were seized in Chiasso, Italy. Mecarelli said he expects a determination from the SEC “within a few days.”

    To contact the reporters on this story: Sonia Sirletti in Milan at ssirletti@bloomberg.netJohn Glover in London at johnglover@bloomberg.net


    http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=afJXAA1ahZyo