Fake bonds in Italy, uh Vatican, again

[Carsten Wiethoff]

This recent news is one piece of a long string of stories of fake bonds caught, as the title of this thread implies. One particular case is from 2009, when two Japanese nationals were caught with 134 billion in US Bearer Bonds, allegedly attempting to bring them into switzerland.

I do remember this 2009 case vividly, and there is a long thread about it on this forum. In 2009 there were pictures published about so called "Kennedy Bonds", allegedly worth one billion (dollars?). I do have in my posession such a paper, which I bought on ebay and which is clearly a commemorative note of the Kennedy space center, having no monetary value at all, but also not claiming to do so. For example, nowhere on the paper is the word "dollar" mentioned.
So in this case it is even difficult to call this paper fake, because it isn't, but is also not any kind of bearer bond. The Japanese guys allegedly carried ten of these papers.
I have no idea what type of papers the guys at the vatican carried, but they obviously created some of these in their hotel room, at least the police found some tools there.
I fail to believe that any serious attempt of fraud by more than a bunch of idiots would work at this level of sophistication.