[QUOTE=William Pesek]
Two Japanese men are detained in Italy after allegedly attempting to take $134 billion worth of U.S. bonds over the border into Switzerland. Details are maddeningly sketchy, so naturally the global rumor mill is kicking into high gear.
Are these would-be smugglers agents of Kim Jong Il stashing North Korea’s cash in a Swiss vault? Bagmen for Nigerian Internet scammers? Was the money meant for terrorists looking to buy nuclear warheads? Is Japan dumping its dollars secretly? Are the bonds real or counterfeit?
[/QUOTE]
Story here. And picked up by the LA Times here.
I’m sure they’re fake, but it still begs the question: what were the two men planning to do with such a large amount of high-quality fake bonds? And who made the fakes in the first place? (I’m assuming forging bonds, at least forgeries worth getting detained over, can’t be done by one guy and a fancy printer. Pardon my ignorance if this isn’t the case.)