Uploaded on July 2, 2008
by jigordon
Okay Peachtree City & AR, with all the financial fiasco going on here in our own backyard I've made every effort to only promulgate some of the more positive things related to our economy in efforts to minimize your stress levels and keep your attitudes as positive as possible. But, this one is so crazy you won't believe it to be true! I just had to write about what could turn out to be the biggest scam and/or counterfeit operation in history!
Two alleged Japanese nationals were taken into custody recently by the Italian Finance Authorities just last week after both attempted to cross the Swiss border with $134.5 billion dollars in undeclared U.S. Treasury bonds. That right folks...that's "$134 Billion" with a B dollars! Two of those bonds were one billion dollar Kennedy bonds, a denomination only used for national currency reserves. Now to give you some ideal of the enormity of this sum of money, $134 billion would be about 1% of GDP or about the amount of TARP bailout money left in the coffers.
Apparently the bonds were hidden in 2 suitcases with false bottoms containing some $500 million dollars each. According to my research, the Italians require you to declare monies over $10,000 euros in efforts to crackdown on money laundering and evidently these bonds had not been declared. The 40% penalty or approximately $38 billion would have been enough to pretty much wipe out all of Italy's national debt. But here is the kicker...Italian authorities were not even initially able to determine if the bonds were real or not.
To my knowledge the Federal Reserve has never issued bonds so I am a little confused with the Italian authorities initially being unable to distinguish real bonds from fakes. Hmmmm....However, it does lend credence to the fact that the counterfeiters work is so good that the fakes were indistinguishable from real bonds. My other concern is that someone had extensive knowledge of these instruments because how else would the fact be known that there was such an instrument as a billion dollar Kennedy bond or would be able to have access to the replica of his (Kennedy's) image. Heck, has anyone you know seen one of these bonds?
Okay folks, I know your head is reeling now with a multitude of questions. I'm probably sure that the most qualified one is, "Who can even purchase that large of a sum of securities?" That's a great question. Only sovereignty like a state or country can make that large of a purchase because the financial market are not privy to issuing and handling that kind of transaction. These and still more hair-raising questions in just a moment.
Before we even go there, let's go back a few weeks to the end of May to another incident that managed to fly under the radar. Italian prosecutors shut down an effort by the Sicilian mafia that attempted to use fake Venezuelan bond to set up over $2 billion dollars in credit lines with Bank of America, HSBC, and several British banks. This unbelieveable scheme is something almost straight out of the "Godfather" as "La Costa Nostra" continues its efforts to go legit increasing their already burgeoning bottom line estimated at $130 billion! Allegedly, corrupt Venezuelan central banking officials reportedly verified the fakes. That allegation was shot down by government officials. So, okay who are you going to believe, Italian prosecutors or Hugo Chavez! Wow, Martin Scorsese prayers were just answered as he couldn't in his wildest dreams have asked for a better plot for a next film to write and direct!
So could these two single incidents be connected in some sic convoluted way? Nobody is talking. Heck, nobody even really reported these events. Has crime taken flight to this grandiose a scale? Plus, what impact would this type of fraud have perpetrated on the money supply in the US? Can you say H-Y-P-E-R-I-N-F-L-A-T-I-O-N! Are our financial markets under siege by these sophisticated and well orchestrated new white collar criminals? I just saw the remake of the movie the Taking of Pelham 123 with Denzel Washington and John Travolta where the devious mind of a ex-con and former stock broker uses a massive kidnapping and murder scheme in New York to negatively impact the markets and enable him to legally make a 15,000% profit on his gold shares. A mere pittance to the $10 million dollars in ransom he requested from the City.
But really, can these two incidents be considered an unbelievable coincidence or point to something much darker? Is the road paved to the truth of these incidents blocked by Mafiosos like the Sicilians and Japanese Yakuza, corupt business entities, politicians and central banking officials?
Seems like we are all being held hostage these day!!
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