Early in June, Italy’s tax police discovered a staggering $134 billion worth of undeclared U.S. Treasury bills in the false bottom of a suitcase carried by two Japanese travelers attempting to cross into Switzerland.
Whether the men are really Japanese, as their passports declare, is still unclear but Italian and US secret services working together [have] concluded that the bills and accompanying bank documents were most probably counterfeit, the latest handiwork of the Italian Mafia.
Few details have been revealed beyond a June 4 statement by the Italian finance police announcing the seizure of 249 US Treasury bills, each of $500m, and 10 “Kennedy” bonds, used as intergovernment payments, of $1bn each. The men were apparently tailed by the Italian authorities.
The mystery deepened on Thursday as an Italian blog quoted Colonel Rodolfo Mecarelli of the Como provincial finance police as saying the two men had been released. [FT]
