At the Chiasso rail station, at the border crossing between Italy and Switzerland, the Italian authorities decided on June 3 to search the luggage of a pair of middle-aged Japanese men. The suitcases turned out to have false bottoms and hid an astonishing cache:

  • 249 Federal Reserve bonds, with a nominal value of $500 million each,
  • 10 Kennedy bonds, with a nominal value of $1 billion each, and
  • original bank documentation.

The total seizure amounted to $134.5 billion.

The Italian authorities have reported on the seizure, and the story has been carried in the Italian press.

The seizure raises questions:

  • If the bonds are genuine, where did they come from, and for whom were they intended? Apart from central banks, is there a market for these very high-denomination bonds?
  • If the bonds were forgeries, who made them, and for whom were they intended? If a creditor were owed even a fraction of this amount, wouldn't it retain experts to avoid forgery risk? Or is this a nefarious scheme to upset international markets?