2 Japanese Carrying $134 Bil Worth Of U.S. Bonds Detained in Italy

If I where to write a Tom Clancy classic I'd suggest that this story might have something to do with Air France flight 447 being shot out of the air to convince the those involved to stop running away with billions in bonds.

[edit on 11/03/2008 by Skydancer]

Originally posted by Skydancer
If I where to write a Tom Clancy classic I'd suggest that this story might have something to do with Air France flight 447 being shot out of the air to convince the those involved to stop running away with billions in bonds.

Tom Clancy would come up with something more intriguing than middle aged Japanese men on a commuter train with false bottomed luggage.

Mike

I know this sounds a bit too much like a cheap rip off of a James Bond flick.
I wonder who sent them??

When I spotted the news on Der Spiegel online a few days ago, it reminded me of another obscure news item back in the '80s: a banker had hanged himself off Blackfriars Bridge in London. That was the first clue we were given about a huge international banking scandal involving Banco Ambrosiano and the Vatican.
Now we have another obscure news item. And we are putting our heads together to try and fathom out what the implications are. My gut feeling tells me this is huge, even more so than the Banco Ambrosiano scandal. Intriguing thought that the Vatican could be involved (although the Italy connection seems a bit spurious).
Here's another puzzle piece which may or may not be useful:

(March) The Fed said it will buy up to $300 billion in long-term Treasury securities over the next six months.

Doing so could help the economy because many kinds of debt—from mortgages to corporate bonds—are linked to Treasury rates. Fed purchases would boost Treasury prices and drive down their rates. That would ripple through and lower rates on other kinds of debt.

At the same time, the Fed left a key short-term bank lending rate at a record low of between zero and 0.25 percent. Economists predict the Fed will hold the rate in that zone for the rest of this year and for most—if not all—of next year.

The last time the Fed set out to influence long-term interest rates was during the 1960s with Operation Twist, conceived by the Kennedy administration.

Across the Atlantic, the Bank of England last week began buying government bonds from financial institutions as it turned to other ways to help revive Britain's moribund economy. The Bank of England, like the Fed, already had lowered its key interest rate to a record low of 0.5 percent.

Finance leaders from top economies have discussed coordinating actions from their governments and central banks to provide a more potent punch against the global financial crisis.

Source: www.breitbart.com...

Predictably our $134 Billion turns out to be not the real thing.

One and probably the other Japanese businessmen turn out to be Philippines 'businessmen' known for trading in counterfeit financial instruments.

They keep their inventory in Manilla envelopes (a joke)

Mike

cannonfire.blogspot.com/2009/06/mystery-bonds-enter-cult-now-it-gets.html

One news story -- immediately taken offline -- identified one of the "Japanese" as a notorious con man from the Philippines named Yohannes Riyadi, a.k.a. Wilfredo Saurin, whose associates in international crime are fairly well-known. The other guy may have been his comrade Joseph Daraman. These two men are the right ages, and they both could pass for Japanese. They've been trading in fake documents from the Federal Reserve for years.

[edit on 16-6-2009 by mmiichael]

reply to post by mmiichael


Another thread suggest the bonds are real, i think it was a german article in Der Spiegel. If that is true anything above that includes the real deal can be true, most probably its a large country like Japan, China or Russia that is trying to unload some of their us dollar holdings. In the beginning of the thread someone posted official FED stat that shows that only five countries in the world hold more in us treasuries, meh.

[edit on 2009/6/16 by reugen]

Originally posted by reugen
reply to post by mmiichael

 

Another thread suggest the bonds are real, i think it was a german article in Der Spiegel. If that is true anything above that includes the real deal can be true, most probably its a large country like Japan, China or Russia that is trying to unload some of their us dollar holdings. In the beginning of the thread someone posted official FED stat that shows that only five countries in the world hold more in us treasuries, meh.

I suggest reading the article I posted.

There have been a lot of conflicting pieces on this subject based mostly on initial misinterpretations, speculations and assumptions by the Italian press.

There is a long history of these kind of fake financial instruments coming from the Philippines. The Kennedy 1 Billion bond is fiction. The fact of the matter is this types of Federal Reserve Bonds does not exist in this format, with coupons, and payable to an anonymous bearer.

According to an announcement from the Federal Reserve Bank in 2005

The Federal Reserve is aware of several scams involving high denomination Federal Reserve notes and bonds, often in denominations of 100 million or 500 million dollars, dating back to the 1930s, usually 1934. In each of these schemes, fraudulent instruments are claimed to be part of a long-lost supply of recently discovered Federal Reserve notes or bonds.

Mike

I have to say this is one of the most interesting news stories in awhile. I'm quite interested to see where this goes and I know the good ATS'ers out there will research and won't let this story go. This feels like the beginning of another Watergate episode. I just wonder who's going to have the blood on their hands?

Hey everyone, I was reading another post when this came up, reminding me of the Japanese/Bond/Italy story. Here is a link to a thread that was started sometime last year. You might find the discussion pertinent to this one.

Do Kennedy Bills Really Exist? The poster asks "I've heard a few times in my life that JFK, through Executive Order 11110, gave the US Treasury the ability to issue currency backed by silver, in an attempt to undermine the power of the Fed."

If its determined that the Kennedy Bonds in question are fraudulent then there is another twist to the story of these guys with the false-bottom suitcase.

I apologize if this has already been covered in the discussion that I might have missed.

somethings not right here.....if it is a fake surely the two would know they couldn't get away with it.more to the point where were they going with it and to who?

Originally posted by Hazelnut
Hey everyone, I was reading another post when this came up, reminding me of the Japanese/Bond/Italy story.

Do Kennedy Bills Really Exist?[/url] The poster asks "I've heard a few times in my life that JFK, through Executive Order 11110, gave the US Treasury the ability to issue currency backed by silver, in an attempt to undermine the power of the Fed."

If its determined that the Kennedy Bonds in question are fraudulent then there is another twist to the story of these guys with the false-bottom suitcase.

There is no such thing as a 1 Billion Kennedy Bonds. There was a really big Treasury Bond scandal in the 90s, usually referred to as Treasurygates.

Trillions involved and real off the books Bonds made out to the likes of Saddam Hussein, who had one for 33 Billion.

They ended up in the hands of an Indonesian who brought them to Texas oilmen to benignly cash and deposit for the American people.

Covered up and embarrassing in the extreme. The US always has the option of not recognizing these and claiming they have no record of them.

This story deserves it's won thread.

Unless something turns up not reported, thus $134 Billion is just a known Philippines scam artist probably trying to peddle these at 1c on the dollar.

The net worth of a whole country is not put in the false bottom of a suitcase.

Mike

This is the most recent information that I can find on this story...from
National Terror Alert...Video here of Beck on Fox News...
$134 Billion U.S. Bond Mystery Continues In Italy

National Terror Alert first reported this story via Twitter back on June 11th and finally it’s getting some press. The mystery however remains. Glenn Beck attempted to get some answers but due to the ongoing investigation no additional information is being released at this time...

Something is definitely smelling here...those verifications could be completed with one phone call...15 minutes. They have serial numbers and the SEC has these records...it would not take days. There is a bigger reason to keep this quiet.

Update: Italy’s financial police said they asked the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to authenticate $134 billion worth of undeclared U.S. government bonds found in the false bottom of a suitcase carried by two Japanese travelers attempting to cross into Switzerland. A determination is expected within a few days.

www.nationalterroralert.com...



Also, good comments here by redhatty...
redhatty

[edit on 16-6-2009 by burntheships]

Thank god for Swiss political neutrality, or these people would never of been caught. Switzerland is the only border check within Europe.

Two Japanese men are detained in Italy after allegedly attempting to take $134 billion worth of U.S. bonds over the border into Switzerland. Details are maddeningly sketchy, so naturally the global rumor mill is kicking into high gear. Are these would-be smugglers agents of Kim Jong Il stashing North Korea’s cash in a Swiss vault? Bagmen for Nigerian Internet scammers? Was the money meant for terrorists looking to buy nuclear warheads? Is Japan dumping its dollars secretly? Are the bonds real or counterfeit?

New Article from Bloomberg

Still no more answers, but at least one serious media outlet is asking the questions.

reply to post by YourForever


i hope your being sarcastic - since the swiss still wont hand over the stolen gold looted by the nazi`s

reply to post by jefwane


Thanks for posting that...
A much more serious write up than the last Bloomberg article....
All the angles we have discussed here!
From your link...

The implications of the securities being legitimate would be bigger than investors may realize. At a minimum, it would suggest that the U.S. risks losing control over its monetary supply on a massive scale.......

......Let’s assume for a moment that these U.S. bonds are real. That would make a mockery of Japanese Finance Minister Kaoru Yosano’s “absolutely unshakable” confidence in the credibility of the U.S. dollar. Yosano would have some explaining to do about Japan’s $686 billion of U.S. debt if more of these suitcase capers come to light.....

......On his blog, the Market Ticker, Karl Denninger wonders if the Treasury “has been surreptitiously issuing bonds to, say, Japan, as a means of financing deficits that someone didn’t want reported over the last, oh, say 10 or 20 years.” Adds Denninger: “Let’s hope we get those answers, and this isn’t one of those ‘funny things’ that just disappears into the night.”

www.bloomberg.com...

Water board the guys and find out why there from. They'll be saying they were a present from Cheney after a couple of days of waterboarding.

That was sarcasm btw!

[edit on 17-6-2009 by r3dman]

As in a gambling casino, the US is the 'House.' It's their money that they have to come up with if these Bonds are real. They can say they aren't, and who is being shafted when they do so?

The Japanese government that instead of doing a standard transaction decided to have two carriers sneak them into Switzerland? The Mafia? Some deposed regime in exile?

They would be declared as unreal no matter whether they were real or not, given the circumstances.

And they aren't real, as we will find out.


Mike

I haven't read the whole thread and this is a stretch but North Korea has been running around liquidating their assets in anticipation of government seizure, mostly in Asia (Macao, Beijing, etc...) Maybe Lil Kim is trying to hide some loot

Also some NK nationals have been caught in the past using Japanese identities (and "Japanese businessmen") for various nefarious reasons.

One of Kim Jong Il's kids was caught under an assumed identity but I believe he was posing as a South Korean

Unconfirmed but according to an online newspaper source our 2 'Japanese' gentleman have fled.

Note the story below of a similar scam involving coincidentally a lady from the Philippines who calimed she had an astronomica amount in bonds in Switzerland.

Mike

www.dallasnews.com...

The Dallas Morning News February 25, 2008

Federal authorities charged a Dallas woman in connection with a scam to sell billions of dollars in fraudulent Federal Reserve notes, including some with a face value of $500 million.

Maria Victoria Hoffman, 48, and two California men were part of a network that tried to market the fake notes to investors across the country, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said Monday.

"You would think the half billion dollar denomination would be a dead giveaway that these notes are fake, but people are nevertheless taken in," Jennifer Silliman, special agent in charge for ICE's office of investigations in Los Angeles, said in a written statement. "For investors, the bottom line needs to be, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is."

Authorities say counterfeiting scam artists often sell fake securities to unsuspecting brokers for less than the purported value or in exchange for collateral on a loan.

The bogus $500 million bills, featuring a portrait of President William McKinley, were dated 1934 and doctored to appear old, officials said.

The largest denomination of currency ever printed is the $100,000 Series 1934 Gold Certificate. The bills bore a portrait of President Woodrow Wilson and were not circulated in the general public, officials said.

Ms. Hoffman was arrested at her Dallas home last week, customs officials said. She was released on $50,000 bond and was ordered to surrender her Philippine passport and to submit to electronic monitoring, officials said.

[...]

Also charged are Darrell Lee Johnson, 78, a Los Angeles lawyer, and Renato Gaza, 60, of San Diego, a suspected associate of Mr. Johnson's. ICE agents seized nearly 500 fraudulent Federal Reserve notes from Mr. Johnson's home and law office in recent weeks, officials said.

[...]

Agent Jones received a package from Ms. Hoffman that included documents and photographs that she offered as proof that she owned two boxes of notes totaling $275 billion, the affidavit said.

The two boxes were being held in Zurich, Switzerland, according to documents the agent received.