$134B in Bonds Seized in Italy 'Clearly Fake'

Italy arrests men with enough US bonds to buy a few countries

(NEWSER) - Last week, Italian authorities detained two Japanese men attempting to cross the border into Switzerland carrying a suitcase stuffed with $134 billion in US bonds. The men are either massive counterfeiters or—even scarier—the fourth-largest creditors of the US Treasury, with enough cash to buy three or four countries. If the bonds are real, writes Bloomberg columnist William Pesek, "the US risks losing control over its monetary supply on a massive scale." More»

US, Italian authorities blame organized crime for huge counterfeiting

(NEWSER) - The counterfeit bonds with a face value of $134 billion seized near the Swiss border are probably the work of the Mafia, say Italian and American secret services. The mystery surrounding the suitcase stuffed with fake US Treasury bonds deepened yesterday, after a blog revealed that police had released the two smugglers. They were carrying Japanese passports but may not actually be citizens. "We don't know where they are now," an official in Tokyo told the Financial Times. More»

(NEWSER) - Two Japanese citizens were detained last week after allegedly trying to take $134 billion in undeclared US bonds from Italy to Switzerland, Bloomberg reports. Both countries are investigating the incident. “Italian authorities are in the midst of the investigation, and haven’t yet confirmed the details, including whether they are Japanese citizens or not,” a Japanese official says. More»

Crooks wanted forgeries to buy plutonium: Italian paper

(NEWSER) - A minor crime averted in Italy: Police seized $6 trillion in phony US Treasury bonds that a criminal network reportedly planned to use to buy plutonium. Cops grabbed the fake bonds at a Swiss trust company in the city of Potenza, they said yesterday. US experts identified the forgeries and eight men were arrested on charges of counterfeiting, forgery, and loan-sharking, Reuters reports. More»

Massive action would dwarf those in Greece, Ireland, Portugal

(NEWSER) - Europe's central banking system has agreed to buy huge quantities of Spanish and Italian government bonds in an attempt to stem the debt crisis overwhelming the eurozone, a source told Reuters after an ECB conference call today. “The Euro system will intervene very significantly,” the source said. He didn’t say how much the bank would pour into the spend, but it’s expected to dwarf the $115 billion spent on Greek, Irish and Portuguese bonds. One economist told the Wall Street Journal that "respectable arguments can be made for ($331 billion to $576 billion) of purchases." More»