2 Japanese Nationals caught trying to dump 134 billion in treasuries

[theoakman]

http://www.japantoday.com/category/crime/view/2-japanese-carrying-134-bil-worth-of-us-bonds-detained-in-italy

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.

 

[stag15]

What were they trying to accomplish?

 

[Brassmouth]

LOL trying to sell US debt under the table.

 

[HOLLYWOOD]

FIAT MONEY!

Maybe they would of been better off doing the 1930's trick of Wallpapering their homes with the Banana Republics inflated paper.

This is big... I would like to see what the foreign news stations broadcast this... it's obvious the American MSM will protect their Masters.

 

[theoakman]

What were they trying to accomplish?

Secretly sell US Treasuries into the market. Japan dumping their treasuries is the equivalent of dropping an Atomic Bomb on the US. This is a game of chicken. No one wants to hold the garbage dollars. But no one wants to piss of the US either. They figured they would secretly dump 10% of their stash while it appeared that the bond market was weak so we could attribute further weakness to the natural decline of bonds. What's scary is that it's this type of behavior that leads to a run on the currency.

 

[torchbearer]

Secretly sell US Treasuries into the market. Japan dumping their treasuries is the equivalent of dropping an Atomic Bomb on the US. This is a game of chicken. No one wants to hold the garbage dollars. But no one wants to piss of the US either. They figured they would secretly dump 10% of their stash while it appeared that the bond market was weak so we could attribute further weakness to the natural decline of bonds. What's scary is that it's this type of behavior that leads to a run on the currency.

Is 134 billion 10% of japan's holdings?
That seems like a small percent of our total debt.

 

[risk_reward]

Very interesting that the Italians are attempting to stop the sale of treasuries. What do we have over them?

 

[torchbearer]

Very interesting that the Italians are attempting to stop the sale of treasuries. What do we have over them?

a better question- wtf is the "financial police"?

 

[torchbearer]

Did they commit a crime?

 

[Matt Collins]

Why were they detained?

 

[Kludge]

Lmao... This story is fantastic.

 

[torchbearer]

from a comment on the article:

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. (from another news site)

The Italian form of the patriot act, a set of laws set up to stop the italian mafia. Interpol shit.

 

[jrkotrla]

we have our own version that predates the Patriot Act, the Bank Secrecy Act (odd name for a law that forces an invasion of privacy) that requires every bank to report to the fed (as in g-men, not reserve) any movement in, out, or through the bank of more than $10,000.

that was back in 1970.

 

[torchbearer]

we have our own version that predates the Patriot Act, the Bank Secrecy Act (odd name for a law that forces an invasion of privacy) that requires every bank to report to the fed (as in g-men, not reserve) any movement in, out, or through the bank of more than $10,000.

that was back in 1970.

yeah- I was a teller for a year with bank one (before jp morgan bought it).
I never filed that shit. It was a paper form you had to fill out. Today's tellers may have electronic forms that auto-report.

 

[DrCap]

a better question- wtf is the "financial police"?

The Guardia di Finanza - Italy has different police that basically enforce only the laws of their own area of specialty.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guardia_di_Finanza

That seems like a lot of money for two folks to be carrying around, I didn't know anyone had that much, let alone, all in US bonds and trying to sell it under the table... odd indeed.

 

[american.swan]

I have a couple of comments.

Could any group of individuals have this many bonds and not be connected to a government?

Do you think this was the first and only time a group of men tried getting so much through a border?

 

[DrCap]

Is 134 billion 10% of japan's holdings?
That seems like a small percent of our total debt.

According to wiki, Japan has $634B so this is a little over 20% of their holdings.

 

[theoakman]

Well, look at the bright side, we may have just decreased our trade deficit by 130 billion. I doubt the Japanese government would want to fess up to trying to dump dollars in Europe. We still technically occupy them.

 

[Knighted]

Wow, 134 billion? That's like the entire GDP of New Zealand, as well as a number of middle eastern countries.

 

[american.swan]

According to wiki, Japan has $634B so this is a little over 20% of their holdings.

June 5th article said Japan had 1024Billion in Foreign reserves, so that would be 10% of their total reserves.