It started with local prosecutors in Potenza, Italy, looking into mafia loan-sharking. But telephone and internet intercepts led to evidence of illegal activity involving U.S. Treasury bonds. Italian, Swiss and U.S. authorities coordinated an investigation which, after a year, led to the seizure of three large trunks in a Swiss trust company which contained $6 trillion in forged U.S. Treasury bonds. U.S. experts were called in to identify the certificates as fakes.
Reuters reports that the network responsible for the forgeries appeared to want to use the forgeries to secure credit with a Swiss bank. The prosecutor in Potenza said a network involved "in many countries" was behind the scheme. The Italian daily newspaper Corriere della Sera website edition said the criminal network was believed to want to acquire polutonium.
American bond traders laughed at the scandal, one calling it "…kind of like fake inflation." But it’s not the first time U.S. bonds have been counterfeited: Italian financial police seized $742 billion of phony U.S. bearer bonds in the town of Chiasso, on Italy’s border with Switzerland, in 2009.
Summarized from a Reuters story at:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/italy-police-seize-6-trillion-144806660.html
Reuters reports that the network responsible for the forgeries appeared to want to use the forgeries to secure credit with a Swiss bank. The prosecutor in Potenza said a network involved "in many countries" was behind the scheme. The Italian daily newspaper Corriere della Sera website edition said the criminal network was believed to want to acquire polutonium.
American bond traders laughed at the scandal, one calling it "…kind of like fake inflation." But it’s not the first time U.S. bonds have been counterfeited: Italian financial police seized $742 billion of phony U.S. bearer bonds in the town of Chiasso, on Italy’s border with Switzerland, in 2009.
Summarized from a Reuters story at:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/italy-police-seize-6-trillion-144806660.html
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