UPDATE: Here is an excellent analysis of the situation, and what it has done to the U.S. dollar:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/5586…
By now, we've all heard about the two Japanese guys busted at the Italian border with $134 billion in counterfeit U.S. bonds. That is a staggering amount of money, and the authorities are thinking the Mafia is behind the whole thing. Here are the latest details:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/82091ec2-5c2f-11de-aea3-00144feabdc0.html
In and of itself, this is a blockbuster story that isn't getting much press. But when I came across this commentary, it really put things in a new light for me (definitely worth a quick read):
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&s…
These guys were carrying the Gross Domestic Product of New Zealand in a couple of suitcases. Imagine for a moment what would happen to the dollar when they started to sell these bonds off (assuming they hadn't been caught). Their exit strategy had to be to sell the bonds because, as counterfeit bonds, they wouldn't be drawing any interest.
And the really scary thing is, yeah, these guys got caught; but were they the first to try it? Were they perhaps a decoy meant to get caught, while an even larger consignment of bonds made it through? This kind of thing could absolutely crater the U.S. economy and utterly destroy the already shaky "Full Faith and Credit of the U.S. Government".
Now, the fact of the matter is that the Treasury hasn't issued paper bonds since the 1980's, so it would be difficult to fool anyone with any real knowledge of the market with these counterfeits. But it just goes to show you that there are people thinking of these kinds of scams, and they are obviously thinking on a grand scale.
As the world economy becomes almost 100% digital, the need for a good counterfeiter is replaced with the need for a good hacker. A truly talented counterfeiter comes along maybe once every generation. But find any 13-year old male with a Star Trek shirt and a can of Red Bull outside a 7-11 and you've probably got yourself a capable hacker.
I know it's the stuff of potboiler novels, but I'd read this one.
Bloody hell, makes you wonder how much the Sicilian mafia are actually worth.
holy shit dude, why hasnt this been on the news?? gdp of new zealand
x
They have got to be fake, no one uses paper bonds anymore. The funny thing is, they could probably could have gotten away with carrying less but less than $143 billion can still be a scary amount.
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