Fake bonds in Italy, uh Vatican, again

[David Guyatt]

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.

It would be good t be able to see some of the "fake" bonds wouldn't it. It was also interesting that they said they had an appointment at the IOR too? It has been one of the dirtiest money-laundering banks in the world for decades past.

The Dragon family story is an old one that has been around for decades. The figures mentioned by Timothy are simply too big to be believable and remind of the Philippines bonds/certificates story circa 1934.

But then there was a certain American lady peddling an even more mind-boggling story involving unimaginably humungeous instruments that went into the multiple quadrillions.

It's always a case of sorting out the wheat from the chaff. The latter is there in plenty.