What started off as a harmless Mafia loan-sharking investigation turned into a rather profitable seizure of $6 trillion worth of forged US Treasury bonds on Friday. Oddly enough, no rally in the treasury market as a result. US officials confirmed that the bonds were not just a misplaced QE 3 and QE 4.
“It began as a investigation into mafia loan-sharking, but gradually expanded as prosecutors used telephone and computer intercepts to unearth evidence of illegal activity surrounding Treasury bonds. The fake securities, worth more than a third of U.S. national debt, were seized in January from a Swiss trust company where they were held in three large trunks.”
“The U.S. Embassy in Rome thanked the Italian authorities and said the forgeries were “an attempt to defraud several Swiss banks”. It said U.S. experts had helped to identify the bonds as fakes. Potenza’s prosecutor Giovanni Colangelo said an international network “in many countries” was behind the forgeries.”
“Italian daily Corriere della Sera said on its website that the criminal network was believed to be interested in acquiring plutonium, citing sources at the prosecutors’ office. Prosecutors said the forgers had hoped to use the fake bonds as collateral to secure loans. The eight men arrested are accused of counterfeiting bonds, credit card forgery, and loan-sharking in the Italian regions of Lombardy, Piedmont, Lazio and Basilicata, police said.”
via Italian police seize $6 trillion of fake U.S. bonds | Reuters.