TWO JAPANESE CITIZENS CARRYING $134 BILLION WORTH OF UNDECLARED, POSSIBLY COUNTERFEIT U.S. BONDS DETAINED IN ITALY WHILE TRYING TO ENTER SWITZERLAND; ITALIAN AUTHORITIES ARE TRYING TO DETERMINE IF THE BONDS ARE AUTHENTIC 
June 11th, 2009 



UPDATE 6: Documents Show Issue Date of 1934: This Is Fraud

According to Bloomberg, the purported securities were issued in 1934:

Italy’s financial police said they asked the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to authenticate U.S. government bonds found in the false bottom of a suitcase carried by two Japanese travelers attempting to cross into Switzerland.

The bonds, with a face value of more than $134 billion, are probably forgeries, Colonel Rodolfo Mecarelli of the Guardia di Finanza in Como, Italy, said today. If the notes are genuine, the pair would be the U.S. government’s fourth-biggest creditor, ahead of the U.K. with $128 billion of U.S. debt and just behind Russia, which is owed $138 billion.

The seized notes include 249 securities with a face value of $500 million each and 10 additional bonds with a value of more than $1 billion, the police force said on its Web site. Such high denominations would not have existed in 1934, the purported issue date of the notes, Mecarelli said. Moreover, the “Kennedy” classification of the bonds doesn’t appear to exist, he said.

The bonds were seized in Chiasso, Italy. Mecarelli said he expects a determination from the SEC “within a few days.”

1934… 1934… It was registering faintly in the back of my brain somewhere. But why?

I posted about a similar scam in 2005. (You know that you’ve been running a blog for a long time when you go looking for information and find it on your own site from four years back, but forgot that you posted it in the first place.)

Since the original Philippine Star article is long gone, I’ll bring it forward from my archives:

$3-trillion fake federal bank notes seized from 2 Britons
By Evelyn Macairan
The Philippine Star 04/22/2005

The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) announced yesterday the arrest of two British nationals who were caught in possession of $3-trillion fake US federal bank notes in an entrapment operation.

Charges of forgery and illegal possession of bank notes were filed against Paul Edward John Flavell and Sam Beany, both residents of the CEO Apartments located on Jupiter street, Makati City.

Manuel Eduarte, head agent of the NBI Anti-Graft Division said charges against the suspects were filed before the Makati City Prosecutor’s Office last April 15. The two were granted temporary liberty after they each posted P16,000 bail last Tuesday.

However, NBI Director Reynaldo Wycoco said he has coordinated with the Bureau of Immigration and requested that the two suspects be included in its watchlist.

Two of their alleged cohorts, also British nationals, have yet to be apprehended by lawmen. They were identified as Zeki Mehmet Bayram and Peter Wittkamp.

The NBI recovered from Flavell and Beany a metal scroll and fake US federal bank reserves totaling $3 trillion, which were contained in an iron chest.

There were 13 boxes in the chest, each containing 50 reserve notes that amounted to $1 billion.

Eduarte said the notes were definite forgeries since the biggest amount the US government came out with was in the denomination of $10,000.

The counterfeit bonds were supposedly manufactured in 1934.

In a report submitted by the NBI-AGD to Wycoco, international courier company DHL Philippines informed their unit last April 14 that suspects Flavell and Beany were about to ship a cargo of fake US federal reserves to Zurich, Switzerland. They paid P53,967.24 as shipment fee.

Eduarte’s agents confirmed that the suspects went to the DHL office located at Pasong Tamo street in Makati City.

The two suspects allegedly paid the shipment fee and were asked to open the iron chest for inspection. Upon seeing that the contents were similar to the items they seized from a previous operation, the NBI agents accosted them.

There have been several like this over the years. See:

Customs Displays Phony 1930s Cash, Bonds:

They stink. Literally and figuratively.

Moldy bonds and bills that con artists used to try to bilk seniors were on display in downtown San Diego yesterday, the loot from two recent seizures by federal fraud cops.

The bonds and bills are dated 1934 and bear incredible denominations – $500,000, $100 million, $500 million – and portraits of former President Ulysses S. Grant and one-time Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase.

One set was seized last month in a San Diego-bound Federal Express shipment from the Philippines, agents said. The moldy bonds were hidden among pages of a photo album.

Four other sets were turned over this summer by a lawyer who said he got them from an El Cajon man indicted in Indiana on fraud charges, said Daniel Burke, who heads a fraud task force with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“Absent the story, absent the sales pitch, a normal person should believe they’re bogus,” he said.

Oh, the story.

That’s the key to understanding how crooks use these documents.

In both of these cases, they told potential victims that the bonds recently were recovered by Filipino tribes from a 1930s-era, CIA-owned DC-10 airplane that crashed, killing all aboard, Burke said.

The U.S. government was sending the bonds in a secret effort to help the Chinese government, the story goes. Only people with connections can cash the bonds, and investors can buy in for a few thousand dollars, getting three to five times their money back.

And, because of the secrecy, the government will deny their authenticity.

A little common sense reveals the lie behind the story. DC-10 jets didn’t exist in the 1930s. Or the CIA. And the U.S. government never printed bonds or money in such amounts.

“People don’t use their common sense,” Burke said.

There are other clues. ZIP codes – printed on some of the bonds – didn’t exist in 1934, and Grant appears on $50 bills, not $500 million.

Chase appears on a $10,000 bill used exclusively by banks that is no longer in production.

The largest currency ever printed by the United States was for $100,000, again used only by banks. The $100 bill is the largest made today.

Forensic scientists haven’t examined the bonds and bills displayed yesterday but have determined that similar documents were produced on computer printers within the past 10 years, he said. 

Tricksters tried to make them look old by getting them wet and moldy.

“All part of the scam,” said Michael Unzueta, acting special agent in charge of the San Diego office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

No local victims have been identified and no arrests have been made directly related to the bonds and bills displayed yesterday, the agents said, requesting victims call authorities.

Burke, who investigated a case involving bogus bonds while working in Denver several years ago, said cheats target senior citizens with fat retirement accounts.

The Denver case, which involved a sting operation, fell apart because the sellers eventually offered the bonds as “historical documents” not guaranteed by the federal government. Jurors couldn’t agree that a crime had taken place.

In the local cases, the San Diego man who was to receive the album with the hidden bonds has agreed to cooperate with authorities and has not been arrested, Burke said.

Orin Aune, the El Cajon man who authorities say gave the lawyer four boxes with the other bonds, is being prosecuted in Indiana on fraud charges in a case involving bogus $100 million bills.

According to the indictment, Aune passed himself off as the sultanate to Sula and North Borneo and the deputy minister of finance for the non-existent country. He also took part in a conference call with a potential investor.

Federal officials say they get calls about the bonds most frequently from the Far East and cite three convictions in the United States in cases involving the fake bonds.

They also note a 2002 appeals court decision in a lawsuit by the holders of some of the bonds against the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, which refused to cash the bonds.

Justices called the claims “preposterous,” noting the national debt in 1934 was $28 billion, and say the reason few scammers have been prosecuted is “because no one could possibly be deceived by such obvious nonsense.”

U.S. Bond Scammer Jailed for Six Years:

A former Scotland Yard scientist who tried to perpetrate the world’s biggest fraud by authenticating $US2.5 trillion ($3.53 trillion) worth of fake US Treasury bonds has been jailed for six years.

Graham Halksworth, 69, claimed that the bonds had been secretly issued by the US government in 1934 to help nationalists undermine the communist revolution in China.

But, he said, the aircraft carrying them had crashed in the Philippines, where local tribesmen had discovered the 22 cases stamped with the American golden eagle and kept them for over 60 years.

Halksworth said a tribal elder had given them to Michael Slamaj, a former soldier in Yugoslavia, and they were brought to the vaults of a London bank.

This yarn was as untrue as it was colourful, Steven Perian, prosecuting, told a jury at Snaresbrook Crown Court in east London, which last month convicted both men of conspiracy to defraud.

He described Halksworth, from Mossley, Greater Manchester, as “an expert who has turned dishonest” out of greed.

Halksworth, who had been a leading fingerprint expert at Scotland Yard, was paid £60,000 ($144,000) to authenticate the bonds, redeemable for US gold.

But when two men tried to pass off $US25 million worth of the bonds at a Toronto bank in 2001, a Mountie noticed the bonds bore the word “dollar” instead of “dollars”.

Police raided the London bank vault and discovered the other bonds in boxes made of modern plastic, unknown at the time of the alleged plane crash.

Experts in America and Canada also found that the bonds – with a face value far more than the entire global gold stock – had been printed with an ink jet printer that had not been invented when the bonds were allegedly produced.

Zip codes were also used, even though they were not introduced until 1963.

Members of the conspiracy had intended to use the bonds around the world as a means of obtaining “enormous” sums in credit.

When confronted, Halksworth insisted that the bonds were genuine.

He accused the US government of lying about their authenticity because it could not afford to honour them.

But Mounties and FBI agents told the court that the bonds were fakes and had never been issued by the US authorities.

Jailing the scientist, Judge William Birtles told him:

“You were an essential part of the conspiracy. Your motivation could only have been one of greed and your reward was not to be just a fee for the authentication that you made.”

The judge said even though both men were incompetent conspirators, “the potential loss to a financial institution was enormous”.

Ok, so we know that there’s a long running scam out there involving fake bonds, but why does Switzerland keep coming up? Why are multiple scammers attempting to move fake bonds to Switzerland?

Hmm. Maybe the Bank for International Settlements needs new wallpaper?

For more on bond related fraud, see the U.S. Treasury: Frauds, Phonies, & Scams.

—End Update—

UPDATE 5: Spiegel Online Is Now Covering the Story

No new information is presented.

Via: Spiegel Online:

It is either the biggest smuggling operation in history — or a fraud of equally impressive proportions. Italian customs officials stopped two men at the Swiss border carrying bonds worth $134 billion (95.8 billion euros).

UPDATE 4: Japan Probes Report Two Seized With Undeclared Bonds

Yesterday, I emailed two Bloomberg reporters who cover bonds, asking them, simply, “Where’s the so-called financial press on this one?” I included a link to this compilation of information on Cryptogon. I didn’t expect a response and I didn’t get one, but at least Bloomberg is finally covering this story. The reporters on the piece below aren’t the reporters I emailed yesterday.

This article raises an extremely interesting question:

ARE THE MEN ACTUALLY JAPANESE?

Folks, whatever happens, don’t let this story disappear. Keep the heat on.

Via: Bloomberg:

Japan is investigating reports two of its citizens were detained in Italy after allegedly attempting to take $134 billion worth of U.S. bonds over the border into Switzerland.

“Italian authorities are in the midst of the investigation, and haven’t yet confirmed the details, including whether they are Japanese citizens or not,” Takeshi Akamatsu, a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said by telephone today in Tokyo. “Our consulate in Milan is continuing efforts to confirm the reports.”

An official at the Consulate General of Japan in Milan, who only gave his name as Ikeda, said it still hasn’t been confirmed that the individuals are Japanese. “We are in contact with the Italian Financial Police and the Italian Public Prosecutor’s Office,” Ikeda said by phone today.

The Asahi newspaper reported today Italian police found bond certificates concealed in the bottom of luggage the two individuals were carrying on a train that stopped in Chiasso, near the Swiss border, on June 3.

The undeclared bonds included 249 certificates worth $500 million each, the Asahi said, citing Italian authorities. The case was reported earlier in Italian newspapers Il Giornale and La Repubblica and by the Ansa news agency.

If the securities are found to be genuine, the individuals could be fined 40 percent of the total value for attempting to take them out of the country without declaring them, the Asahi said.

The Italian embassy in Tokyo was unable to confirm the Asahi report. 

—End Update—

UPDATE 3: Yosano Says Japan’s Trust in Treasuries ‘Unshakable’

Oh sure. Tell me another one.

Via: Bloomberg:

Japanese Finance Minister Kaoru Yosano said his government is confident about the outlook for U.S. Treasuries, signaling the second-biggest foreign holder of the securities will keep buying them amid record sales.

“We have complete trust in the fact that the U.S. views its strong-dollar policy as fundamental,” Yosano, 70, said in an interview in Tokyo on June 10 before attending a Group of Eight meeting of finance ministers starting today in Italy. “So our trust in U.S. Treasuries is absolutely unshakable.”

—End Update—

UPDATE 2: Picture of Seized Bonds

Via: adnkronos.com:

U.S. Treasury documents confiscated by Italian authorities

—End Update—

UPDATE 1: English Translation of Press Release Issued by the Guardia Italiana di Finanza (Italian Financial Police) on 4 June 2009

I received two different translations and a third offer to do a translation. (Thank you, CL, A and V.) The two translations I received were similar, so I’m going to post them both here. Here is CL’s translation:

Impounded at Chiasso [place] USA securities for 96 billion euros.

249 bonds of the Federal Reserve of the United States, each with nominal value of 500 million dollars, as well as 10 Kennedy bonds each of 1 billion dollars in value, hidden in the double bootom of a suit case, for a total of a good 134 billion dollars, equal to more than 96 billion euros.

This is how much was sequestered [don't know legal implication of this term] at the internation railway station in Chiasso, at the Swiss-Italian border, functionaries of the Territorial Operational Section of Chiasso, in collaboration with soldiers/members of the Financial Police [Guardia di Finanzia] of Ponte Chiasso, during the checking of bags aimed at stopping the illegal trafficing of capital.

The amount was in the possession of to fifty year old Japanese men who had arrived at the Chiasso railway station on a train coming from Italy and who, when checked by customs, had stated that they had nothing to declare.

Instead an accurate check of the bags facilitated the discovery of the American securities, hidden in the bottom of the suitcase, in a closed section separated from the part of the bag containing personal items.

Apart from the securities the Japanese men were carrying a considerable sum of original bank documents.

Investigations are underway to establish the identity and the origin of both the bonds and the bank documents that have also been impounded. If the securities are authentic, based on regulations in place, the penalty applicable to the possessors [of the bonds] could reach 38 billion euros, equivalent to 40% of the sum in excess of the acceptable baggage allowance of 10 thousand euro.

Here’s A’s translation:

249 Federal Reserve Bonds for 500 million dollars of nominal value each, plus 10 Kennedy bonds of 1 billion dollars each was found in the hidden bottom of a suitcase for a total of 134 billion dollars, or around 96 billion euro.

That’s what has been confiscated during some checks for illicit capital traffic by operatives of Sezione Operativa Territoriale di Chiasso in the Chiasso train station, on the boundary between Italy and Switzerland, in collaboration with Guardia di Finanza del Gruppo di Ponte Chiasso.

The bonds where carried by two Japanese people in their fifties that got off in the Chiasso train station from a train coming from Italy. At customs they declared nothing of value.

An accurate search of their luggage showed up the bonds, well hidden in a special compartment of their suitcases, behind their personal effects.

In addition to the bonds the two Japanese were carrying a large amount of original banking documentation.

Investigations are underway for the bonds and the documents, which also have been confiscated, to understand their authenticity and origin. If the titles would be authentic, the administrative sanction applicable would amount 38 billion euro, equivalent to 40% of the exceeding of the maximum allowed amount of 10.000€.

—End Update—

There is a news blackout on this story. Please nail this one to the foreheads of the mainstream financial press until they cover it.

I am requesting an accurate English translation of the press release that was issued by the Guardia Italiana di Finanza (Italian Financial Police) on 4 June 2009 about this incident. If you have the ability to provide all of us with an accurate English translation of this press release, please contact me. Here is a machine translation of the press release.

Lagavulin submitted this Asia News Italy to the Cryptogon Subreddit two days ago. Here is the full text:

06/08/2009 15:18
ASIA – ITALY
US government securities seized from Japanese nationals, not clear whether real or fake Bonds worth US$ 134.5 billion are seized. This is the largest financial smuggling case in history. But are they real? Concern over ‘funny money’ or counterfeit securities is spreading in Asia. The international press is silent.

Milan (AsiaNews) – Italy’s financial police (Guardia italiana di Finanza) has seized US bonds worth US 134.5 billion from two Japanese nationals at Chiasso (40 km from Milan) on the border between Italy and Switzerland. They include 249 US Federal Reserve bonds worth US$ 500 million each, plus ten Kennedy bonds and other US government securities worth a billion dollar each.

Italian authorities have not yet determined whether they are real or fake, but if they are real the attempt to take them into Switzerland would be the largest financial smuggling operation in history; if they are fake, the matter would be even more mind-boggling because the quality of the counterfeit work is such that the fake bonds are undistinguishable from the real ones.

What caught the policemen’s attention were the billion dollar securities. Such a large denomination is not available in regular financial and banking markets. Only states handle such amounts of money.

The question now is who could or would counterfeit or smuggle these non-negotiable bonds.

In order to stop money laundering Italian law sets a ceiling of 10,000 euros per person for importing or exporting money without declaring it. The penalty for violating the law is 40 per cent of the money seized.

If the certificates were real, for Italy it would be like hitting the jackpot. The fine alone would amount to US$ 38 billion, five times the estimated cost of rebuilding quake-devastated Abruzzi region. It would help Italy’s eliminate its public deficit.

If the certificates are fakes the two Japanese nationals could get a very lengthy jail sentence for fraud.

As soon as the seizure was made the US Embassy in Rome was informed. Italian and US secret services were called in to assist the Italian financial police.

Some important international financial newspapers had already reported on the existence of ‘funny money’ circulating on parallel, i.e. unofficial, financial markets.

For AsiaNews a few points need considering:

1. When it comes to Italy the world press has tended to focus on Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi’s personal problems rather than on stories like the bonds smuggling affair which has been front page on Italian newspapers.

2. The fear of counterfeit bonds and securities has spread across Asia with the result that real securities are also considered with suspicion.

3. During the Second World War several countries at war printed and put in circulation perfectly counterfeit enemy money. It is also historically established that some central banks, like the Bank of Italy 65 years ago, issued the same securities twice (identical registered number and code). This way they could print more money with legal tender than they officially declared. The main difference though is that 65 years ago the world was involved in a bloody war, which is not the case today.

I was not able to find ANY English language translation of this story until today.

This is from Kyodo News Service, reposted on Japan Today:

2 Japanese carrying $134 bil worth of U.S. bonds detained in Italy

Thursday 11th June, 06:18 AM JST

ROME —

Two Japanese nationals were detained by Italian financial police last week after trying to enter Switzerland with $134 billion worth of undeclared U.S. bonds, mostly Treasury bonds, an Italian daily said Wednesday. The Japanese consulate general in Milan confirmed that the detention had taken place and said it was trying to confirm with Italian authorities whether the two were indeed Japanese nationals and their identities.

According to the report in il Giornale, two unidentified Japanese in their 50s concealed the bonds, including 249 U.S. Treasury bonds each worth $500 million, in a suitcase with a false bottom that was searched by the Italian authorities June 3 when they were in Chiasso, at the border with Switzerland, about 50 kilometers north of Milan. The daily did not say on what charges they have been detained, but the two may have been detained on suspicion of attempting to take a large amount of securities out of Italy without declaring it because the paper said they had not declared the bonds.

Here is the Italian language press release from Guardia Italiana di Finanza (Italian Financial Police) on 4 June 2009:

Sequestrati a Chiasso titoli USA per novantasei miliardi di euro
Milano, 4 giu. (Adnkronos)

Duecentoquarantanove bond della Federal Reserve statunitense, del valore nominale di 500 mln di dollari ciascuno, piu’ 10 bond Kennedy da 1 mld di dollari ciascuno, occultati nel doppio fondo di una valigia, per un totale di ben 134 mld di dollari, pari a oltre 96 mld di euro.

E’ quanto hanno sequestrato alla stazione ferroviaria internazionale di Chiasso, al confine tra Svizzera e Italia, funzionari della Sezione Operativa Territoriale di Chiasso, in collaborazione con i militari della Guardia di Finanza del Gruppo di Ponte Chiasso, nel corso dei controlli volti al contrasto del traffico illecito di capitali.

I valori erano posseduti da due cinquantenni giapponesi scesi alla stazione ferroviaria di Chiasso da un treno proveniente dall’Italia che, al momento del controllo doganale, hanno sostenuto di non avere nulla da dichiarare.

Un’accurata verifica dei bagagli ha consentito invece di trovare i titoli Usa, occultati sul fondo di una valigia, in uno scomparto chiuso e separato da quello contenente gli indumenti personali.

Oltre ai titoli, i due giapponesi trasportavano una cospicua documentazione bancaria in originale.

Per i bond e la documentazione che li accompagnava, anch’essa sottoposta a sequestro, sono in corso indagini volte a stabilirne autenticita’ e provenienza. Qualora i titoli risultassero autentici, in base alla vigente normativa, la sanzione amministrativa applicabile ai possessori potrebbe raggiungere i 38 miliardi di euro, pari al 40% della somma eccedente la franchigia ammessa di 10mila euro.

Latest Mainstream News Coverage

Largest Treasury Bond Caper in History? - theTrumpet.com

Spiegel Online 
Largest Treasury Bond Caper in History?
theTrumpet.com, OK
AsiaNews is reporting that Italy's financial police seized bonds worth $134.5 billion from two Japanese nationals at Chiasso, an Italian border city known for catering to Italians who want to keep their money out of the Italian banking system. ...
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Billions in US bonds seized in smuggling operation - Hot Air

Billions in US bonds seized in smuggling operation
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Italian authorities seized more than $130 billion in bonds from two Japanese nationals as they presumably prepared to cross the border into Switzerland. No one can tell at the moment whether the bonds are genuine or counterfeit: Italy's financial ... 

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I first came across it at Karl Denninger's site: Italy's financial police (Guardia italiana di Finanza) has seized US bonds worth US 134.5 billion from two Japanese nationals at Chiasso (40 km from Milan) on the border between Italy and Switzerland. ... 

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Italian police of the Guardia di Finanza have seized US$134 billion (€96 billion) of United States bearer bonds at the border with Switzerland at Chiasso. The bonds include 249 Treasury bonds worth $500 million each, and ten $1 billion Kennedy Bonds. ... 

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Is it all funny money?
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The story goes like this: two Japanese nationals in their 50s were stopped by Italian police in the town of Chiasso while trying to cross into Switzerland. In a suitcase with a false bottom they were trying to hide 249 US Treasury bonds, ... 

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The bonds were found June 3 during a search by Italian authorities in Chiasso, on the border with Switzerland about 50 km north of Milan. The newspaper did not say on what grounds the two were detained, but they may have been held on suspicion of ... 

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Milan (AsiaNews) – Italy's financial police (Guardia italiana di Finanza) has seized US bonds worth US 134.5 billion from two Japanese nationals at Chiasso (40 km from Milan) on the border between Italy and Switzerland. They include 249 US Federal ... 
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Research Credit: Lagavulin, LB, CL, and A

Posted in Covert Operations, Economy | Top Of Page 

4 Responses to “TWO JAPANESE CITIZENS CARRYING $134 BILLION WORTH OF UNDECLARED, POSSIBLY COUNTERFEIT U.S. BONDS DETAINED IN ITALY WHILE TRYING TO ENTER SWITZERLAND; ITALIAN AUTHORITIES ARE TRYING TO DETERMINE IF THE BONDS ARE AUTHENTIC”
lagavulin Says: 
June 11th, 2009 at 6:41 pm 

Wow, this is actually starting to look like fraud of some kind, if not outright counterfeiting.

Pair this with reports that the Italian government is largely Mob-controlled anymore, and it makes me wonder who else is involved in this transaction…
Seattle Shortbus Says: 
June 11th, 2009 at 9:19 pm 

Is this related to a notice published by The Fed in November 2007?

I’ve had bing translate the text on this page http://mercatoliberonews.blogs.....iganti.htm to confirm it was reporting on the $134B smuggling story, which does appear to be the case.

There is .pdf attachment found on the page http://etleboro.com/documents/copy-title.pdf, but I am unable to tell if the documents are supposed to be directly related to the Japanese smugglers. 

However, the documents reference two names. One is Yohannes Riyadi, and the other is Teo Hui Kiat.

A quick google search turns up a result for the former on the New York Fed’s page of banking scams http://www.newyorkfed.org/banking/frscams.html (no real useful results for Teo Hui Kiat).

Full text here:
The Federal Reserve is aware of a fraudulent scam involving individuals using the names Yohannes Riyadi and/or Wilfredo Saurin, or persons claiming to be representatives of these two men. In a typical version of this scam, Mr. Riyadi and/or his delegates falsely claim that they have on deposit with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York several U.S. Treasury Checks issued to Mr. Riyadi amounting to billions of dollars.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York has been contacted by several brokers and financial institutions worldwide inquiring about the validity of this fraudulent account documentation, which is being offered as collateral for lines of credit or other types of asset based financing. The fraudulent scheme includes multiple documents which purport to have the signatures of various Federal Reserve officials, including Chairman Ben Bernanke.

In some instances, individuals involved in this fraudulent scheme claim to have met with Federal Reserve officials and claim to have verified that the alleged account is in order. We have also learned that the fraud may include the purchase of certain documents by the introducing brokers.

If you have information regarding this fraud please contact either Robert Amenta, Special Investigator at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, or Erik Rosenblatt, Senior Special Agent at the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
pookie Says: 
June 12th, 2009 at 9:40 am 

Japan secretly trying to divest out of their US debt?

http://www.lewrockwell.com/blo.....27232.html
Seattle Shortbus Says: 
June 12th, 2009 at 10:22 pm 

An interesting coincidence pointed out in an updated asian times article–on March 30th, the WSJ and other news outlets reported that TARP had $134.5 Billion remaining.

http://online.wsj.com/article/.....66241.html

I honestly believe this is a coincidence, but a striking one for sure.