Smuggled bonds were counterfeit, says US
posted at 2:17 pm on June 18, 2009 by Ed Morrissey
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More than a week after the capture of two Japanese nationals carrying over $134 billion in US bearer bonds, the Obama administration has finally made a public comment about it. Washington has declared the bills forgeries, which may answer some questions but create even more. If these are fakes, who’s creating them — and why?
U.S. government bonds found in the false bottom of a suitcase carried by two Japanese travelers attempting to cross into Switzerland are fake, a Treasury spokesman said.
“They’re clearly fakes,” Stephen Meyerhardt, a spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of the Public Debt in Washington, said yesterday. “That’s beyond the fact that the face value is far beyond what’s out there.”
Italy’s financial police last week said they asked the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to authenticate the seized bonds, with a face value of $134 billion. Colonel Rodolfo Mecarelli of the Guardia di Finanza in Como, Italy, said the securities, seized in Chiasso, Italy, were probably forgeries.
Meyerhardt said Treasury records show an estimated $105.4 million in bearer bonds have yet to be surrendered. Most matured more than five years ago, he said. The Treasury stopped issuing bearer bonds in 1982, Meyerhardt said.
King Banaian asks the obvious question, and supplied the obvious answer:
So the questions become: who forged these bonds and towards what end? Who would have been willing to accept them as payment? How did these two persons come into possession of them, if they were not the forgers? … If it’s a fraud, the best guess is that it’s the North Koreans that have done this.
That’s hardly idle speculation. Pyongyang has run a years-long counterfeiting operation of $100 bills, both to generate some illicit hard currency and to weaken the dollar. That effort proved futile at the latter, but generating high-denomination counterfeits of bearer bonds would certainly do the trick. The mistakes made in the process — the types of bonds created never actually existed, a rather crucial research error — would indicate that the people behind the effort didn’t have access to easily-found information.
Russia and China could also be behind it, but that seems less likely. They don’t have to counterfeit American securities, especially China; they hold plenty of them. If they want to crash the dollar, all they have to do is start dumping the legitimate securities they own. Producing counterfeits would only dilute their own holdings, perhaps the costliest example of cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face ever.
It could also be the work of a few nutcases, or perhaps an attempt by a certain terrorist network to respond in kind to the economic warfare we’ve waged on them. As William Pesek writes at Bloomberg, it has all the hallmarks of a Tom Clancy or John Le Carré novel, except for the explosions in the former and the ennui of the latter.
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So, they were indeed from North Korea, then.
Vashta.Nerada on June 18, 2009 at 2:19 PM
Hundred dollar bills can be passed on the street. Half-billion dollar bearer bonds … not so much.
This story reeks at all levels.
progressoverpeace on June 18, 2009 at 2:19 PM
Oh, what would be a great way to collapse a Western country that depends on its currency?
Perhaps devalue it?
Excellent point, Ed. This is not better.
Larry Farr on June 18, 2009 at 2:20 PM
Are they forgeries? I simply do not trust the Obama administration to tell the truth, especially when the subject is financial.
Rebar on June 18, 2009 at 2:21 PM
I believe the term is: duh! If you hold billions in legitimate bonds, you don’t swamp the market with fakes. To do so would be to devalue your foreign currency holdings.
Vashta.Nerada on June 18, 2009 at 2:22 PM
What’s funny is that in a couple of years, the fakes will be just as valuable as the real ones.
Vashta.Nerada on June 18, 2009 at 2:23 PM
It’s more or less impossible to know the truth here.
the_nile on June 18, 2009 at 2:23 PM
Casus Belli.
Little Boomer on June 18, 2009 at 2:23 PM
Ditto. Obama and his crime gang have zero credibility.
JiangxiDad on June 18, 2009 at 2:24 PM
This is a big setback to Barry’s 2012 fundraising effort.
Vashta.Nerada on June 18, 2009 at 2:25 PM
Hmmm…sell them to China, and have China call the fake bonds? With as much debt as we already owe them, maybe whoever made them was gambling that with the economic clusterfark going on, there would be few questions asked if China called such a comparatively small amount.
It’s a stretch, even with Geithner at the helm, but possible.
There’s always the more sinister notion that someone made these based on inside knowledge about a coming event that would make it possible to call them. Maybe if China were to suddenly call theirs, this third party could try and sneak these through in the confusion.
MadisonConservative on June 18, 2009 at 2:25 PM
The story still stinks to high heaven.
Who the hell would try to pass off 134 billion in fake treasury bonds? That would take balls the size of something really huge.
The question I would like an answer to is: What would they report to the media if they found they were real?
Joe Caps on June 18, 2009 at 2:26 PM
The dollar needs to be replaced by a commodity basket currency managed by the IMF or the World Bank. The fiscal stability of the U.S. is highly questionable.
CMonster on June 18, 2009 at 2:27 PM
If we go along with the concept of a world currency, our image will crack even more.
MadisonConservative on June 18, 2009 at 2:29 PM
Agreed. There’s an element of unsophistication to it all, the operation, the response, the lack of media curiosity, the time it took to authenticate. Its all so clumsy.
elduende on June 18, 2009 at 2:29 PM
That is even funnier than the comments on the Dude post.
Vashta.Nerada on June 18, 2009 at 2:29 PM
Yeah! Lets have the UN run our military while we are at it!
Moron.
Joe Caps on June 18, 2009 at 2:32 PM
And they let the two Japanese men go free, why exactly?
Riposte on June 18, 2009 at 2:33 PM
maybe they bought them at a flea market
I bought a $3 Dollar Bill with Bill Clinton on it once
jp on June 18, 2009 at 2:35 PM
btw, this is an Act of War
on a serious note
jp on June 18, 2009 at 2:36 PM
Here is another take on the report.
http://market-ticker.org/archives/1131-Bearer-Bonds-Saga-Resolution.html
jdun on June 18, 2009 at 2:36 PM
the dollar still represents by far the #1 Economy in the world, relax
jp on June 18, 2009 at 2:37 PM
I smell a new Bruno movie.
faraway on June 18, 2009 at 2:38 PM
I know it reeks of conspiracy theory nuttery on the scale of Trutherism, but I still think the Obama administration is behind this. They seem to have a vested interest in tanking the U.S. dollar. Presumably they want insane inflation so the crisis continues to escalate so they can continue to grab power from a panicked population. The clumsiness matches their M.O., too.
aero on June 18, 2009 at 2:38 PM
Everyone reading and writing this blog should be reading http://market-ticker.org every single day.
No excuses.
Riposte on June 18, 2009 at 2:39 PM
Nuke Japan!
DarkCurrent on June 18, 2009 at 2:40 PM
The Norks should have stuck with the $200 George W. Bush Bill. If it works at Fashion Bug, you know its good as gold.
WashJeff on June 18, 2009 at 2:40 PM
My take is NoKo plus AQ. Which could be very scary.
Both Russia and especially China don’t want to see the US weakened too far, they do want trade. NoKo + AQ, not to mention the mullahs running (roughshod over) Iran would love to see the US collapse.
rbj on June 18, 2009 at 2:41 PM
Only Dr. Evil could pull off a caper this large.
faraway on June 18, 2009 at 2:41 PM
Hey here’s an idea, why don’t we have the US government run our health care system…oh, wait, they’re trying to do that already…never mind my bad!
Liberty or Death on June 18, 2009 at 2:41 PM
may have been an intelligence operation blown…could have been a “pay for” something like a service or nuke material or other nasty with funny money that would be worthless in reality.
elduende on June 18, 2009 at 2:44 PM
The North Koreans do excellent work when it comes to engraving. Since 1989 we’ve been turning up NK fakes all across the globe, even here in the US.
Making counterfeit currency within one’s borders is a grime, when made outside that currency’s borders, it is an act of war.
I’d be interested in the precise identities of the two Japanese “businessmen.” Were they Japanese or were they Chosen Soren?
The amount of fake bonds seized it more than the worth of most of the nations in the world, $134 billion…and if these bonds had entered the market it would have caused grave damage to US notes and to the US overseas economy merely because there would be great doubts as to the authenticity of any US note or bond.
Then there is the China angle…Beijing has already made it clear that the dollar should no longer be the currency of trade…upset global confidence in the dollar and China’s case for a new global currency becomes stronger.
As for that act of war thingie…since we have been at war with North Korea since June 1950…no big deal in the grand scheme of things. I’d be more worried about our ham-handed attempt to board a North Korea ship on the high seas, on going at the moment.
Amateurish…
We’ve boarded their ships before, without the fanfare and prior publicity, and successfully. There are ways to accomplish this all well within international and admiralty law, and in a less provocative manner.
coldwarrior on June 18, 2009 at 2:45 PM
Now that is the only thing I have read that makes any sense at all.
faraway on June 18, 2009 at 2:46 PM
And, I might add, North Korea has long been China’s id. When China wants to do something aggressive, they have their black sheep do it.
Vashta.Nerada on June 18, 2009 at 2:49 PM
Why would China intentionally undermine their biggest ‘asset’ in such an amateurish way?
DarkCurrent on June 18, 2009 at 2:50 PM
Check foxnews tracking NoKo ship with possible weapons
Oil Can on June 18, 2009 at 2:51 PM
The counterfeiting story, while undermining confidence in the dollar being the world reserve currency, does not devalue the dollar.
Vashta.Nerada on June 18, 2009 at 2:51 PM
Where did you read that they went free? If they went free, that would lend a bit of credibility to this:
Daggett on June 18, 2009 at 2:52 PM
i must have missed this when it was posted a few days ago. very weird….
one thing that i know for certain, having lived in japan for a long time and done a lot of reading and talking to people while i was there: the norks have been abducting and “brainwashing” japanese nationals for decades, often using them to teach japanese language and culture to their spies or using them as spies themselves. this is common knowledge and there is a lot of info. out there about it, especially if you can read japanese.
this may have been said in previous reports on this and postings here at HA… but, in my opinion, it’s very possible that these men were not actually japanese. they were nork agents trained to pass themselves off as japanese. or, they were actual japanese nationals who are trained as spies or are sympathetic to the norks. either way, it definitely does stink to high heaven.
i wonder if they weren’t released so that japanese intelligence could either detain or track them…
homesickamerican on June 18, 2009 at 2:53 PM
It’s just Barry’s quarterly deposit into his Swiss Healthcare Savings Account. Because under the new Federal plan, paying for that earjob is gonna cost a nickel or two.
Changucopia on June 18, 2009 at 2:53 PM
Huh? Explain it to me slowly please. I’m slow.
DarkCurrent on June 18, 2009 at 2:54 PM
I blame Ernst Blofeld.
jaime on June 18, 2009 at 2:55 PM
yes, the “chosen soren” are the “actual japanese nationals who are trained as spies or are sympathetic to the norks” to whom i am referring above.
homesickamerican on June 18, 2009 at 2:55 PM
Zero percent inflation provided by a commodity basket currency is what any free market conservative should support. At issue is what organization could be a sound issuer.
Looking at the U.S. debt, its unfunded obligations, and its current administration; the U.S. is not currently and not foreseeable a sound issuer.
Being at this conservative blog bemoaning the condition of big government getting bigger while turning more and more industries into socialist enterprises and the lamenting the size of the debt and obligations while simultaneously stating with oxymoronic pride that nothing can replace the U.S. and its currency is less than intellectually honest.
CMonster on June 18, 2009 at 2:55 PM
This calls for waterboarding.
Maquis on June 18, 2009 at 2:57 PM
If this is a purely NORK operation they already have people immune from search they are called diplomats…why not give them the funny money in Switzerland instead of running them through Italy by train by people that had no diplomatic immunity?
elduende on June 18, 2009 at 2:57 PM
Well, they were probably real before they were fake.
BetseyRoss on June 18, 2009 at 2:57 PM
Zombie Hitler?
faraway on June 18, 2009 at 3:00 PM
Do you work for Hu Jintao or George Soros?
Joe Caps on June 18, 2009 at 3:00 PM
There are two theories. One is that Treasury has been issuing bearer bonds under the table, and the bonds are real. The other theory is that they are fake. Assuming they are fake, China has NK agents posing as Japanese get ‘caught’ trying to move billions in fake bonds. This raises the question of the reliability of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency, while not affecting the value of the dollar, as the money supply has not been changed. If the bonds are not forgeries, then somebody has been lying about how much debt exists, and the dollar falls. If you want to push world opinion away from the dollar while not devaluing your own foreign currency holdings, you want to see many fakes out there.
Vashta.Nerada on June 18, 2009 at 3:02 PM
Do you ask silly questions because you can’t offer a valid counter argument?
But in this economy, you gotta take what jobs come your way ;)
CMonster on June 18, 2009 at 3:03 PM
Technically, Chosen Soren are not Japanese nationals…they are burakumin. They have to carry separate identification papers, and are shunned by most proper Japanese…hence their heavy involvement in organized crime in Japan since the 1950’s, it is the one part of the Japanese economy they seem to dominate with panache. Want a bag man to carry out an unpleasant task? Don’t ask a regular Japanese to do so…but a burakumin? Sure, why not?
The Chosen Soren has acted as overseas bankers for North Korea since the 1950’s…moving cash in and out of North Korea with relative ease…the Nigata-Wonsan ferry makes two runs daily, almost all passengers are Chosen Soren.
Unfortunately, most don’t give credit where credit is due when it comes to North Korea, most having a team America impression of Kim Chong-il that obscures the reality of the threat. Only when there is some sort of major public event, such as our Navy getting ready to ask a North Korean freighter to heave to on the high seas do most give North Korea more than a moment’s thought.
Perhaps it would behoove this Administration to recall many old Korea hands to help them out in this case?
coldwarrior on June 18, 2009 at 3:06 PM
Clancy novels have a lot of ennui?
apollyonbob on June 18, 2009 at 3:09 PM
Yakuza
Speakup on June 18, 2009 at 3:09 PM
I totally disagree. I don’t care about zero percent inflation, I just don’t want inflation due to government borrowing. I don’t see the need for a commodity basket currency – commodities are just as subject to bubbles as countries are – see oil, steel, copper, and corn in 2008 for examples. Finally, you are right that the big issue is who is the currency issuer. There is no government or organization that I trust to run it, certainly no international one like IMF or WB. I don’t much trust the US Treasury right now, but I trust them a darn sight more than anyone else.
Vashta.Nerada on June 18, 2009 at 3:09 PM
Oh wait, explosions. Okay, misread it. Yeah they do have those.
apollyonbob on June 18, 2009 at 3:09 PM
That’s Timmy Geithner. I could tell by the sniveling and the idiotic love of empowered, peerless, competitionless international institutions. He’s just winding down after having to make a fool of himself selling the Traitor-in-Chief’s proposed straightjacket of a regulatory regime to the fools in the Senate.
progressoverpeace on June 18, 2009 at 3:12 PM
Exactomundo.
It reeks enough to fill the White House with flies.
Daggett on June 18, 2009 at 3:12 PM
Using North Korean diplomats to be bag men has its disadvantages…the primary one being that such would clearly be an act of war if caught. The second is that most NK overseas diplomats who are not members of the KWP Organizations Department [NK intelligence] are largely pretty much unable to conduct even the most basic of business transactions, for the most part many are being sent overseas as a reward for loyalty to Kim Chong-il more than any given expertise, or to get key players out of P’yongyang for a given period of time, as is the ongoing case of Kim Chong-il’s brother who has been overseas for decades, just moves from one capital to another as an Ambassador, just to keep him away from P’yongyang.
Using a trusted means…Chosen Soren, for example, to conduct overseas banking operations has worked well in the past.
coldwarrior on June 18, 2009 at 3:13 PM
yes, you are right, technically. however, from my gaijin standpoint, they are as japanese as any japanese person in terms of language and social skills, etc., and most “real japanese people” couldn’t the difference either.
i meant to distinguish them from actual norks from n. korea. but you are right in that they aren’t “regular japanese nationals”.
homesickamerican on June 18, 2009 at 3:13 PM
Like a Tom Clancy novel? Well we DON’T have a Jack Ryan, we DON’T have a John Clark, and we don’t have a Chavez.
We’re screwed.
Jeff from WI on June 18, 2009 at 3:13 PM
But we have Obama…and unicorns… :-)
coldwarrior on June 18, 2009 at 3:14 PM
Suggesting that commodities are any less volatile than bonds is less than intellectually honest, as well. In addition, yielding the dollar and buying into a new form of note that has no primary country backing it will work against us twofold.
First, countries like China and Russia won’t touch it, and they’ll pressure other countries to do likewise. The EU won’t go anywhere near it as they’re busy trying to stabilize the Euro. We’ll have a currency that only we use with no homeland-defended value to back it up, and it will become worthless far faster than the dollar ever would.
Secondly, with that in mind, the US would immediately become politically insolvent, and there would be little standing in the way of a superpower like Russia if they decided our shale oil reserves would be better in their hands. We’d appear as weak as newborn kittens.
MadisonConservative on June 18, 2009 at 3:15 PM
The Japanese Bond Smugglers Are Missing, The Business Insider, June 17, 2009
This might suggest they were real bonds that some huge bond-holding nation (like China or Japan) was unloading legally (but off the open market), therefore no actual crime was committed, no arrest was made.
petefrt on June 18, 2009 at 3:16 PM
Eh. I don’t really claim to know enough about economics to offer a strong enough counterpoint that you would be satsisfied with. I just think it would be a bad idea to lose control of our currency, call me small minded.
I am curious about what your motivations are lecturing conservatives about why we should adopt a world currency and why you are an advocate for this (other than no inflation). That is why I asked the question.
Joe Caps on June 18, 2009 at 3:18 PM
coldarrior, with all due respect, please research more deeply into burakumin.
DarkCurrent on June 18, 2009 at 3:20 PM
Inflation serves no purpose other than to allow governments to print money to spend that it otherwise hasn’t earned through production or taxation.
I don’t think you are understanding how a commodity basket currency would insulate a holder from general commodity bubbles and still allow for the flexibility of supply and demand price changes.
CMonster on June 18, 2009 at 3:20 PM
the headline of the japanese article linked there says that they were released without charges, i believe…
homesickamerican on June 18, 2009 at 3:22 PM
I don’t think you are understanding how a commodity that hostile nations could affect the supply of would devastate such a plan. Are we talking petrodollars? Gold standard? Or are we just going to go with good ol’ orange juice?
MadisonConservative on June 18, 2009 at 3:23 PM
Using it in a generic sense, not any battering of the tribal folks in Japan. Basing this on conversations with Japanese over the years…it is a term used by them to denote “bumpkins” or non-Japanese Japanese.
But the point stands…the Yakuza is peopled largely with non-Japanese Japanese. Outsiders in their own country.
coldwarrior on June 18, 2009 at 3:24 PM
Inflation can be a natural economic effect as well, not always based on accumulating public debt or printing currency, and no, a commodity basket is not insulated from suppy/demand bubbles.
Vashta.Nerada on June 18, 2009 at 3:25 PM
Madoff?
davidk on June 18, 2009 at 3:25 PM
Soros?
coldwarrior on June 18, 2009 at 3:26 PM
Iran paying NK for nukes? Or NK paying Iran… Osama… Trouble is NK has both competent counterfit engravers and the nukes–Osama only has a cave. And people willing to commit suicide, that is something.
petunia on June 18, 2009 at 3:28 PM
So much for layers of editors and fact-checkers.
hicsuget on June 18, 2009 at 3:28 PM
So-called ‘burakumin’ are Japanese, not North Koreans.
It’s a pejorative term in any case.
DarkCurrent on June 18, 2009 at 3:32 PM
Ben Stein?
davidk on June 18, 2009 at 3:33 PM
You talking frozen concentrated orange juice?
Chaz706 on June 18, 2009 at 3:34 PM
Was referring to Chosen Soren, not North Koreans.
A pejorative? Sure it is. Same as Red Neck or Hick when used by most mainstream Japanese.
coldwarrior on June 18, 2009 at 3:34 PM
When the history of this time is finally all out in the open there are lots of weird occurrences that need to be explained. So much cloak and dagger–and I think Obama is a big mystery too, how in the world did he get elected with so little to offer? Yet there he is. The world just does not make sense right now.
petunia on June 18, 2009 at 3:36 PM
No, it’s not equivalent to red neck or hick. It was a specific social class during feudal times (not so distant in Japan) and descendents of ‘burakumin’ still face discrimination if they are identified as such.
Red neck or hick would be ‘inaka mono’ or ‘hyakusho’
DarkCurrent on June 18, 2009 at 3:40 PM
What it suggests to me is that they served their purpose, and the person(s) powerful enough to stage this made sure they were let go.
Daggett on June 18, 2009 at 3:40 PM
If they were legit bonds, and the Italians could prove a crime was involved, Italy could have stood to gain about $40 billion in fines.
You’d think the Italians would have been a bit more on the ball on this one.
The unanswered questions are generating more questions, and our faithful professional MSM is doing what? Still talking about our Valiant Little President…that Brothers Grimm’ fairy tale “Seven in One Blow” prowess at killing a fly.
coldwarrior on June 18, 2009 at 3:45 PM
Indeed.
MadisonConservative on June 18, 2009 at 3:48 PM
And I luvs me some Clancy!
juanito on June 18, 2009 at 3:58 PM
I know this sounds crazy but I’m reading David Kilcullen’s The Accidental Guerrilla, in the book he conveys a new Chinese military axiom on how to win a conflict against the US. A few Chinese colonels released a book in 1999 that essentially said to fight the US in a conventional war would be like committing suicide. Instead they said you would need to fight the US unconventionally (i.e. Guerrilla War)in a hybrid war. In this hybrid war or Fourth generation warfare an adversary uses Terrorism, sophisticated psychological warfare with an emphasis on Media manipulation and puts pressure on political and economic fronts. Well Al Qaeda and their lot have already executed the first two elements and maybe now China sees an oppertunity they can topple US hegemony.
Cr4sh Dummy on June 18, 2009 at 3:59 PM
Hey, isn’t $134 billion the exact same figure that tax cheat Timmy said was left of TARP funds a few weeks ago?
Vashta.Nerada on June 18, 2009 at 4:02 PM
A commodity basket currency with a comprehensive set of commodities is not depenedent on the fluctuation of one commodity just as the dollar is not value driven by just one sector of the economy i.e. healthcare
CMonster on June 18, 2009 at 4:06 PM
The original story claimed:
Now you get this quote from Washington:
It might be that the story and the silence about the story was the whole idea. If you know a panic is going to occur and you know when the panic is going to end, you can expect to make money with it.
Whoever initiated the comment about the bonds being “indistinguishable from the real ones” has got to be in on the scam. That person would have had to have a real billion dollar bill to hold side-by-side with these to even make that comment.
Buddahpundit on June 18, 2009 at 4:11 PM
Hey, these bonds are legitimate. They come from the Nigerian Central Bank, and belong to me.
I have the email to prove it.
Vashta.Nerada on June 18, 2009 at 4:14 PM
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20040910-9999-7m10bonds.html
Vashta.Nerada on June 18, 2009 at 4:18 PM
Counterfeit or just all-around worthless?
Oink on June 18, 2009 at 4:41 PM
That’s the way I read it too.
The more I think about it, the more I think you’re right. It suggests that another state intervened on the smugglers’ behalf and secured their release.
Next question: Did Italy collect its 30% or whatever for catching the smugglers? If so, then the bonds were authentic, right?
petefrt on June 18, 2009 at 4:51 PM
Glenn Beck was pointing out today how the authorities have reversed their story on this. Sounds like so much scrambling and bungling to me. Stinks on ice.
petefrt on June 18, 2009 at 5:01 PM
When the story first came out, these were said to be perfect-looking, non-negotiable Treasury bonds. Now all of a sudden they’re bearer bonds?
Where they jokes, hand drawn in crayon, with pictures of Moose on them? Or did somebody spend REAL time and effort making these things — even going so far as to make eight different denominations — but then not realize that a billion dollar bearer bond might as well say eleventy gazillion dollars?
No part of these two stories make the slightest bit of sense. This one’s getting buried deep.
logis on June 18, 2009 at 5:11 PM
“inakappe” is my personal fave. it literally translates as “country fart”. ;-)
homesickamerican on June 18, 2009 at 5:26 PM
I think the offical story will be that these Asian fellows were victims scammed into buying the worthless bonds, which they thought were legit, and were on their way to Zurich to cash the bonds.
That sounds possible, but it doesn’t explain the behavior of the Italians or the behavior of Washington waiting two weeks before calling these things fakes. Although, in the case of Washington’s response, it could be argued that you don’t want to get into the habit of of commenting on ridiculous forgeries because then you always have to comment on subsequent ridiculous forgeries or everyone will think that one is the real deal.
It’s the “undistinguishable from the real ones.” comment in the media that was the killer. I don’t think these certificates ever existed so there never was a “real one” and someone in Italy would have had to have held a “real one” side-by-side with the ones they confiscated to make the assertion.
Buddahpundit on June 18, 2009 at 5:50 PM
Probably what tipped them off that the bonds were fake is that they had a photo of Obama embossed on them and the words, “Trust Me, I Know What I am Doing” under the photo.
albill on June 18, 2009 at 5:55 PM
And, some idiot was trying to pass off around $134 billion in unregistered bearer bonds?
SC.Charlie on June 18, 2009 at 5:58 PM
The fact is they are real and after they were consficated they went right into Zbignew Brezinski and David Axelrod’s bank accounts.
MaximusConfessor on June 18, 2009 at 10:55 PM
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