(no subject)

[theweaselking]

Two Japanese men are detained in Italy after allegedly attempting to take $134 billion worth of U.S. bonds over the border into Switzerland.

"Think about it: These two guys were carrying the gross domestic product of New Zealand or enough for three Beijing Olympics. If economies were for sale, the men could buy Slovakia and Croatia and have plenty left over for Mongolia or Cambodia. These men carrying bonds concealed in the bottom of their luggage also would be the fourth-largest U.S. creditors"

EDIT: "The idea of running around continental Europe with 4.5 percent of US debt stashed away in a hidden briefcase compartment is, let's face it, so dumb it's awesome."

Comments

[elffin.livejournal.com]

I'd lay even money they were ultimately headed for UBS.

Or they're fakes.

(the bonds)

[jsbowden.livejournal.com]

They're counterfeit, see the link I posted below.

[elffin.livejournal.com]

Bingko!

[jsbowden.livejournal.com]

http://business.theatlantic.com/2009/06/the_worlds_dumbest_financial_criminals_ever.php

[silmaril.livejournal.com]

Whew, because if that was real... things would get shakier.

As it is, this is funnier than it has any right to be.

And oh to have been a fly on the wall when the customs officers discovered this. The bug-eyes. The sheer flabbergastedness.

[anton-p-nym.livejournal.com]

"Go big, or go home," I guess.

-- Steve got a really good chuckle from the linked articles.

[a-pawson.livejournal.com]

As they are fake, have they have committed any actual crime?

[violent-rabbit.livejournal.com]

Well counterfeiting bonds for a start.

[a-pawson.livejournal.com]

It would make a good story, but it's not entirely true unfortunately. Wikipedia is not the best source, but does seem to sum it up rather well.

In November 2002, German customs officers at the Swiss-German border performed a routine search of Johnson's car. Bank statements evidencing US$8 billion in transactions were found in the trunk of his car. He was accompanied in his black Mercedes-Benz by three men: an investment adviser, a personal assistant, and a third of unknown identity. Initially it was thought Johnson was involved in money-laundering, but he was cleared of wrongdoing. Upon receiving word of the incident, German tabloids began exploiting and perpetuating the story, at times pointing at the irony (as perceived by them) that Don Johnson has frequently portrayed police officers in his acting works. Johnson explained the incident by saying "I was meeting with some American businessmen in Zurich for financing, for a film fund that I was putting together for my company. They gave me some bank statements and some resumes and some other documents, some things to prove that they could perform as investors." The police found and copied these documents, and the money laundering story grew somehow out of this.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I don't know whether to laugh or boggle at some criminals. I mean, in what alternate universe did they think that they could counterfit that much money and get away with it? Hells if they HAD succeeded I shudder to think what the long term result would have been!

[a-pawson.livejournal.com]

I hear it was the final payment for the perpetual motion device they needed to power their orbital death-ray.

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

[anton-p-nym.livejournal.com]

A late thought; it'd have been much, much more appropriate for them to have been caught teetering on a precipice in the Alps after having their bus's tire blow out.

-- Steve thinks it's a self-preservation society.

[jagash.livejournal.com]

Ahh, I suppose they were planning on buying the Alps then.