Update on the bearer bonds story

A Treasury spokesman says they're "clearly fake".

And, apparently, this is a long-running attempted scam.

Comments

[Speedmaster]

I saw this today.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/143462-strange-inconsistencies-in-the-134-5-billion-bearer-bond-mystery

[Acad Ronin]

Told you so. The scammers are greedy and make the numbers too big. I suspect that multiple small scams of borrowing US$100K against US$1mn in bearer bonds might well have worked nicely.

[pj]

Why were the Japanese released, whereabouts now unknown, without any charges being filed? Why did the Treasury wait until the evidence had disappeared before releasing a statement? Why does that statement contain the caveat "based on photos we've seen from the Web"? In 2 weeks since the June 3 seizure, the Treasury can't get a close-up look or see photos taken by the Italian police? Who has the bonds now? Were they given back to the Japanese?

We're still not getting the full story, and there's something fishy in Italy.

[Jim Glass]

A "Nigeria" type scam ("can you help us cash these with a little up-front money?") may be least implausible, but it still leaves a bunch of quesions. E.g;

1) You want to use that scam on rubes who will fall for it. The big ol' USofA is a market for you, yes!

But why do you try to smuggle these into Switzerland to pull that scam? With its tiny population that's maybe the most financially sophisticated outside of Lichtenstein? (There are no rubes in Italy?)

I don't see why they'd be taking these into little Swiss-land unless there was someone there who already committed to wanting them. Who? A scam victim? Why? Why the secrecy?

And if this was a "Nigeria" type scam, intstead of taking the bonds into the country wouldn't you be taking the victim's money out?

2) If it was a scam like that, why did they let the perps walk?

3) If it was a scam like that, why the news blackout? Shouldn't they be publicizing it as a public service in financial education?

In fact Q #2 applies in all imaginable scenarios, and the news blackout, which is raising all the other questions, is itelf rather hard to fathom.

Whatever happened, it's an historic *something* -- theft, fraud, smuggling operation, Nigeria scam, act of counterfeiting, screw-up by inept criminals -- so why the press is ignoring this baffles me. Consider all the inanities they do cover.

Bloomberg's longest article on the subject so far has been an opinion piece wondering why nobody's covering it.