U.S. Authorities Probing $100 Billion of Bonds Seized in Italy

U.S. Authorities Probing $100 Billion of Bonds Seized in Italy

www.bloomberg.com

The U.S. Secret Service is examining more than $100 billion of U.S. government bonds confiscated in northern Italy in August, just two months after $134 billion of allegedly fake securities were seized in a nearby town.

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.

(visit the link for the full news article)



Related AboveTopSecret.com Discussion Threads:
2 Japanese Carrying $134 Bil Worth Of U.S. Bonds Detained in Italy

Here we go again! This is not the story from June, where 134 billion in bonds were seized by Italian authorities, taken from 2 supposedly Japanese men. Then that story had a news blackout and we never really were given an answer to what happened to the bonds, and the men were released.

Now we have a similar incident this time with $100 Billion in bonds; that happened in August, and it is just now hitting the news?

Hummm...something very fishy!

The previous story from June is linked in the Related Thread posted here at the bottom.

We will see how this pans out...the story makes no mention that these bonds are thought to be fake, so they may be real.

With the economic crisis tettering on the brink these stories make the mix volatile.

The article is from Bloomberg News.

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 person said. The seized notes include securities with face values of $500 million and $1 billion, Italian daily MF reported today, without saying where it got the information.

“There must be a well-organized group behind these alleged crimes,” Fabio Polimeni, a Milan lawyer specializing in counterfeiting cases, said.

www.bloomberg.com
(visit the link for the full news article)






[edit on 19-9-2009 by burntheships]

Great, now I have to read up on more funny money transactions. For those that do not know about the first time. The people were released and they let them take the "supposedly" counterfeit bonds. In that situation, there was no talk in the MSM about it. The NYT and Bloomberg were the only ones to run anything on it. Something is happening behind the scenes, I wonder if their is a connection to the US being allowed to view Swiss bank accounts. The first time that the Swiss have EVER allowed this.

reply to post by endisnighe


Yep something very strange, also note that this happened in August,
and the story says they are investigating the bonds, still?

It does not take weeks to verify securites of this value!
Believe me, I worked at one of the oldest most well know securites company, and used to verify these all of the time. It does not take weeks. Something is very very suspicious!

[edit on 19-9-2009 by burntheships]

[edit on 19-9-2009 by burntheships]

Ok, Edit to note that I misread the article.. they don't say it was $134M again.. it as billion and it was OVER $100B.. *sigh* need more coffee.


[edit on 9-19-2009 by rogerstigers]

Reading between the stories...this is very interesting, very.

The return of Italian bond futures next week after a 10-year absence may help traders better protect against price swings in Europe’s lower-rated debt than contracts tied to German bunds.

Ten-year Italian bond futures start trading on Eurex, Europe’s biggest derivatives exchange, on Sept. 14. F&C Asset Management Plc, Investec Asset Management and Aletti Gestielle SGR SpA said the contracts should enable them to hedge their holdings of Greek, Irish and Portuguese debt more effectively as the slump in those securities during the financial crisis caused the gap between their yields and benchmark bunds to widen to the most since the introduction of the euro.

www.bloomberg.com...

Ireland has sent out an SOS call to its influential diaspora to help pull it out of the Western world's worst recession and restore its business reputation.

The Global Irish Economic Forum has gathered around 180 top people of Irish descent from the corporate and cultural arenas to brainstorm in Dublin on how to restore momentum to what was once Europe's fastest growing economy

www.reuters.com...

Yes, it's very fishy indeed. You'd think that by now, "smugglers" would realize that Italy is not the best place to be carrying around billions in bonds in a briefcase, whether real, fake or counterfeit.

There's no mention that the bonds in this case (pun! ) were being smuggled, so we have to wonder how the authorities got onto the "two individuals" involved and nabbed them and their pieces of printed paper.

We also have to wonder at the conflicting statements in that Bloomberg article. They mention the $134 billion that we know about already, but later the article says that this year to date, police in Italy "have confiscated more than 100 million euros of bonds that have been determined to be false". Errm... what about the $134 billion of "fake" bonds from June 4? Why don't they include them? Or is the "euro" figure literally for euro-denomination bonds only? I doubt it! So why isn't the 134 billion included in this total? A US Treasury spokesperson said they're fakes -- but are they really?

These "bond" stories just get curioser and curioser.

Sooner or later they're going to nab a single individual with a bundle of briefcased (bogus) bonds, which will give the media the chance to use "Mr Bond caught"! if they decide to run the story.

Well, there's another $100 billion the US thought they had, and now don't.

This news could possibly send the markets down today.

Just wondering how many are out there that haven't been
caught.

Enough to bring the financial system down if they were all
revealed, I imagine. Gold will continue to go up.

[edit on 21-9-2009 by kingswillquiver]

Originally posted by burntheships
Who recieved the Trillion dollars in domestice support from bail out one?
The Fed: We dont know.

Who recieved the 1/2 Trillion dollars in foreign support?
The Fed: We dont know.
ATS

This may answer part of your question posed in one of your other threads

I love how the Fed is able to lose so much money, and still receives very little comedown from the masses. I guess more people than I would like to think are subdued and living in their cozy little Matrix world.

I guess it's easy to forget that most Americans do not scrutinize the News- or even pays attention to the News for that manner. That or people have gotten so accustomed to being screwed over they don't care anymore... Naw... on second thought, I agree with my first statement, they are just too comfortable reading their tabloids and listening to the latest Miley Cyrus/Jonas Brothers album while watching some good ol' Reality TV!


-Sliadon

The sad truth of reality is..i am willing to bet, no one wil be held accountable. Our political leaders are part of this, most esepcially, the bush family* This will soon become a forgotten story no one cares about(which they should), becuase it goes to show how sloppy and corrupt wall street and coporate business REALLY is

Amazing that this case is not being covered by the American MSM. Another coverup just like the case a couple of months ago with the two Japanese men.

Something is going on and its not good for the US dollar...

That's the problem with Blackmail, once you pay you never finish paying.

As I posted earlier this year:

Posted by Bhadhidar, on June 20, 2009 at 16:14 GMT

This was all a part of a massive international, inter-governmental Fencing operation.

That $134.5 billion (US) worth of bonds was intended to be exchanged for "Hard" currency (possibly: Gold? Hence the Swiss destination?) of some lesser value, say $0.25-$0.40 cents on the dollar: in other words, Fenced.

Therefore, one could say that the vast majority of the bonds siezed "had no value", since their value would be "discounted" as a part of the fencing transaction. And if the bond's "real" value is $0, despite its "face' value, then the bond could be said to be "fake", just another word for "not real", which is just another way of saying "a forgery", right?


Government "double-speak" is a fascinating thing, isn't it?



Now, typically, a fenced item is something that cannot be "openly" sold on the regular market, due to the fact that it was either illicitly obtained, or that it is, itself, an illicit item.


One of the reasons fencing is used is to make the procedes of the transaction "untraceable".



Now why would the the US government, the ostensible guarantor of the bonds in question, want to "launder" such securities so badly that it would accept a fence-rate discount?


Who was being paid off?

And for what?



Curious, the happenings in Iran of late, no?

Shortly after this affair hit the MSM, VP Joe Biden shot his mouth off about how the Russians would not challenge US foreign policy.

Fool! (Or Puppet?)



It would appear that the US has fallen prey to the blackmailer's oldest ploy: Pay me once, and I'll make you pay again and again.



Of course, we (the US) really have no other choice.


We are in the grips of an Economic World War (though nobody seems to want to admit it) and our very survival as a sovereign Nation depends on out manuvering the very nation(s) we've have "sold our souls" to.


Those who hold our debt, hold our fate. And they are not our friends.



Unless we can buy back what we have lost to them, we will be forced to surrender to them.

This thread seems to have died an early death.

Sorry if it was anything I said!

reply to post by Bhadhidar


The problem with this topic is that most of us know nothing about high finance and governmental dealings in this regard. Some of us are greatly interested in what appears to be high crimes here, and yet NO BODY (except you) that knows the slightlest thing about these shenanigans is talking. One of those self-imposed gag-order things we find so common today, I guess.

At least, it has died a dignified death. Far better than the sophomoric drivel that gives a virtually endless life to many topics here on ATS.

Another $116 billion in bonds seized in Italy - this time 2 Filipinos arrested.

What happened to the Japanese nationals caught with the previous bonds?

From Alibaba.com (same story on many other sites). All MSM reports claim the bonds are fake, but there is a dispute about this.

"Italy arrests two in $116 bln fake U.S. bond probe
Published: 24 Sep 2009 17:33:08 PST

MILAN, Sept 24 - Italian prosecutors have arrested two Filipino nationals in an inquiry that led to seizure of a total of $116 billion in fake U.S. government bonds, the country's tax police said in a statement on Thursday.

The investigation started in August when police found $103 billion in fake bonds in a parcel at Milan's Malpensa airport during a police operation against international tax evasion. The other $13 billion was found subsequently. A telephone number and other data on the parcel helped the tax police trace the two Filipinos -- a woman residing in the northern Italian city of Genoa and her brother.

"The two certainly have a well defined role as part of a transnational organisation with connections in the United States," Emilio Flora, head of the tax police at Malpensa, told Reuters in a telephone interview. In June, police seized from two Japanese nationals similar fake U.S. government bonds, totalling $134 billion, at the Chiasso rail station near the Italian-Swiss border.

"There are many similarities between this case and Chiasso in regard to (the bonds) manufacture," said Fiora. "We can suppose that both bonds have a common criminal origin."

The U.S. Secret Service, which polices counterfeiting of U.S. currency, was looking at possible links between the fake bond seizures, he said.

The Filipinos arrested on Thursday were wiretapped while talking to Asian members of a religious community about how to "manage" the bonds once they arrived at the Malpensa airport.

Subsequent searches in Genoa led to the seizure of another $13 billion in fake U.S. bonds and a guarantee certificate on a further tranche of bonds.

All the bonds seized at Malpensa and Genoa belonged to a non-existent 1934 issue from the U.S. government."

reply to post by burntheships


Very Intriguing story and with two NEW guys with bonds!

This story is getting better and better! - but something is up indeed, and it's very fishy it seems!

Like the rats leaving the sinking ship, unfortunately!

But the story is good - when's the movie due?


Btw! is that you in the picture/avatar? - very beautiful!



[edit on 1-10-2009 by Chevalerous]

reply to post by Chevalerous


Very close resemblance... but have to keep cover you know?

There is definitely something going on with this bond shenanigans.

The latest story is here, the 116 billion and two Fillipino men...

www.forbes.com...

reply to post by burntheships


Ahh stupid me! I had the impression that the first two Japonese guys had REAL bonds, but now I read that they were fakes, or were they?

Naah! just joking! but if all these bonds showing up with asian people as the transporters, makes me suspect some kind of Asian mafia.

But who really knows? can we trust the MSM when they say that these bonds are fakes?

If they were real I could understand that they must do some damage control to stop the panic alarm sirens by all means possible!

But why is the market for fake bonds located in Italy? it doesn't make sense - La Cosa Nostra in Italy is more or less out of order, and to sell these amount of bonds the buyer need some serious cash.

I mean, they can't sell the to financial institutions because they would find out directly that they are fakes - which makes me speculate that on the other hand were real bonds I could understand why they use the route through Italy and take them over the border to Switzerland were these kinds of real bonds could be sold easily with no questions asked!

Think about it! if the asians lower TPTB and mafia knows that the dollar could possibly tank or seriously lose some value - of course they would like to downsize their reserves.

But they can't do that through the official channels because the public alarm bells would start to ring, so they need to do it in a more unconventional way like sending two guys to Switzerland through Italy.

But then comes the reality check! why are they not flying directly to Zürich?

Could the Swiss authorities be über hard on control with security control of bags from private plans?

Well, I have lived in Switzerland but I really don't know? - I need to investigate this further.

What I do know now is that the Swiss authorities has begun to be super serious about the financial & money business with hard control and what not!

It's not like 10 years ago when even I had my old bank account stil open in a Swiss bank but was living in Scandinavia.

A couple of years ago I received a kindly written letter letting me know that those days were over because of new rules/agreements together with the EU and the account would be terminated - now apparently I must have my main living adress there and live in the country to have bank accounts! - It's new hard EU rules that the Swiss has to play along with since they now have so much agreements with the EU. And the EU Tax-mafia doesn't want people to slip their money into accounts out of the EU Gestapo tax control!

But who the hell would like to buy fake bonds? - fishy stuff, these bonds!


[edit on 2-10-2009 by Chevalerous]

Of course it’s just coincidental but these continued occurrences of staggering sums of money in the form of securities that fit snugly into a person’s brief case do not exactly hurt my theory that Rome has never stopped conquering the world and what more secretly runs it.

That’s an awful lot of money flowing clandestinely out of Rome and Italy at a time when most people are looking to bum change for a cup of espresso!

Just saying!

reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler



Oh, but of course!


I thread killed a post about this particular bust awhile back...www.abovetopsecret.com...

They've caught two of these attempts, I wonder how many more have made it through?!

*crosses fingers he doesn't kill this thread, because he's starting to get a complex about it*

[edit on 2-10-2009 by tjack]