Suitcase With $134 Billion in US bonds seized on Swiss border

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Stunning.

I have a feeling that in face of that they will probably claim illiquidity as they are unlikely to have so much cash. But, if real, the Italians could confiscate the equivalent amount of bonds, sell them and transfer the money to the Italian treasury. 38 billion euros? Quite a boon. Interesting prospect for Italy. More on Bloomberg

 

I find of hard to believe that they would be authentic. I find it much more likely that someone or probably some state (possibly North Korea) has made a serious effort to counterfeit US treasury bills. If they are real however then there are lot of questions to be answered.

 

Not just the States; what does it do for economic stability in the world? Everyone has their eyes on America right now, fearful of problems with the fragile road to economic recovery.

What were those two idiots thinking, hopping across borders like they're drug-smugglers? Are these the kind of people that control our destinies? Let's just hope that the bonds turn out to be false...

 

I have a question. Call me ignorant of law if you want, and I may well be, but why is transporting bonds across international borders a taxable event? I generally think of bonds as a pseudo-cash equivalent, or an investment. If I go do Canada, should I declare the money in my wallet? Should I declare the silver earrings my wife is wearing? Is there some kind of limit in amounts, and if so, why?

 

NOG,
aliens visiting the US also have to declare their currency or monetary instrument when entering customs. I found that on a US Embassy page:

* according to the CBP money and monetary instruments includes U.S. or foreign coins currently in circulation, currency, traveler’s checks in any form, money orders, and negotiable instruments or investment securities in bearer form (ie. bonds).

The Japanese gentlemen failed to properly declare these bonds. It is probably so that 138 billion dollar somewhat exceed the personal allowance under Italian law. The 40% the Italians will demand when the bonds turn out to be valid will be likely be the fine for the Japanese gentlemen not declaring and basically smuggling them through Italy and to Switzerland. Declaring money and monetary instruments carried also has high relevance with regard to money laundering laws. If the bonds are fake it's obviously a remarkable case of counterfeiting.

 

Can't find any legitimate site detailing "kennedy bonds" & as morgoroth stated they are most likely fake.
This reminds me of the story of don johnson getting stopped by the german police with 8 Billion dollars worth of bonds. Supposedly they photographed the bonds and let him go.

 

If these bonds are legitimate they are either stolen or owned by some national state. There's no way Italy is going to get its hands on 40% of their value. But as I said earlier I think they are very likely counterfeit. If this would be a covert attempt of Japan to sell off their US treasury bonds it would be an extremely clumsy and desperate attempt, even so how they'd have actually sold these bonds without attracting any attention is a mystery to me.

 

bloomberg news

So they were fake after all

 

Yeah I think the original bloomberg article drew overdramatic and very unlikely worst case scenarios about the incident to spice up the story. There is no way anyone would be allowed to travel with such amounts of money.

 

I am kind of curious if we will have find out the real story about this. I'm guessing that there had to be some sort of reason to try to smuggle fake bonds.

 

There are USD 1 billion bonds, but whether they're "Kennedy" bonds or not might be a different question...especially if these specific bonds were worth more than 1 billion each...

here:Nordic Investment Bank issues new global USD 1 billion bond

The geographical distribution of these bonds is rather interesting...