© BBC
The bonds were reportedly hidden in makeshift compartments of three safety deposit boxes in Zurich according to an emailed statement from Potenza-based Italian prosecutors.
Eight people were reportedly arrested due to the inquiry, which was codenamed "Operation Vulcanica" and the American embassy in Rome has already examined the bonds although embassy officials have yet to comment.
It gets really strange when we find out that, "The individuals involved were planning to buy plutonium from Nigerian sources, according to phone conversations monitored by the police."
Even more strange is that the bonds were reportedly held in crates marked as property of the Chicago Federal Reserve System, in fact the picture of the crate released by the BBC reveals that the boxes were Treaty of Versailles Mother Boxes.
If these bonds were indeed forgeries, it implies that the box itself might be fake as well, which raises the question: why would counterfeiters go through the effort of not only faking $6 trillion in $1 billion bonds but also go through the effort of creating a fake Treaty of Versailles Mother Box?
When I try to imagine the mindset of a thief, I cannot bring myself to understand why I would counterfeit two things instead of just one, thus doubling my chances of the forgeries being detected.
Furthermore, why hide the bonds in makeshift compartments within the Mother Box? It all just makes so little sense I'm not sure what to think at this point.
I am sure conspiracy theories will abound surrounding this incident and there is a chance that some of them may be right on the money (no pun intended), just as the so-called conspiracy theorists were proven right in the case of government collusion with Goldman Sachs.
This story seems to have some similarities to a 2009 incident in which two Japanese individuals were reportedly arrested while trying to smuggle some $134 billion in U.S. bonds into Switzerland from Italy. It later emerged that these were allegedly fake bearer bonds as well.
However, this case is obviously much more noteworthy given that it is a whopping $6 trillion in bonds and the sellers were allegedly involved in planning to buy plutonium with the money they made, not to mention the angle of the Mother Boxes involved in the smuggling attempt.
The Italian prosecutors in Potenza discovered more financial fraud including two checks issued via HSBC Holdings Plc in London for around $325,000, which were not backed by sufficient funds.
Unsurprisingly Patrick Humphris, the HSBC spokesman, refused to comment on the matter when contacted via telephone, according to Bloomberg.
Also part of the investigation, some $2 billion in additional fake bonds were allegedly seized in Rome, although it is unclear if these are the same bonds and if so why they would leave two in Rome.
According to the prosecutors' statement, the fraud posed "severe threats" to international financial stability, although it is unclear how exactly this is the case other than the fact that the $6 trillion in allegedly fake bonds makes up nearly half of the United States' public debt.
Italy has a history of fraudulent U.S. securities being discovered. Indeed there were no less than three cases in 2009 alone.
In August of 2009, Italian police seized numerous fake U.S. Treasury bonds with a face value of $116 billion and in June of that year $134 billion in similar securities were discovered by law enforcement as well.
The United States Secret Service reports an average of about 100 cases per year relating to forged bonds and other fraudulent financial instruments, although I doubt they deal with $6 trillion in bonds to be used to buy plutonium very often.
The details on this case are quite sparse at this point but it is shaping up to be a quite interesting incident indeed.
Who were these individuals? Why were they trying to buy plutonium? How would $6 trillion in fake bonds threaten the entire financial system?
All of these questions and more remain to be answered and we will attempt to keep you up to date as this case unfolds.
... I don't think those were fake bonds.
There are at least two major problems here.
1) The people who know the true story behind these bonds do not want that story to be correctly understood.
2) Those of us who have looked into this story either in depth (David Wilcock, David Guyatt, the Seagraves, and the lawyers for the Trust) or as students of one or more of these persons may not all fully understand the story, either.
It is far from a fully-told, fully-understood story - as are so many of life's stories.
That said, certain facts seem clear:
1. A decision was made after WWI to take the planet off the "gold standard." This was an international decision that many nations participated in. I am not sure it is public history at this time.
2. Apparently, the US Federal Reserve was put in charge of coordinating this operation. Countries that cooperated simply forced their citizens to turn in their gold for some price. Countries that didn't cooperate were invaded under various pretexts and the gold seized, often quite ruthlessly. Apparently the bonds were a part of this operation. They served as receipts, I think. I'm not sure their role is entirely clear. But they were never meant to be redeemed. They were just a way to acknowledge the original ownership of the gold.
3. As the gold became locked up in impenetrable storage areas, the attention of those who wished to subvert this process (or expose it) turned to the bonds. The bonds were created in a way to provide a record, and yet make them deniable. There is no telling which bonds that have come to light in recent years are forged and which are real. The real ones have mistakes on them so that it could be argued that they are fake. As mentioned, they were never meant to be redeemed. Perhaps they could be borrowed against.
4. This system became subverted. The original intention was that the additional wealth created by this system was to be used to raise the general standard of living across the globe. Instead, it has been used only to enrich a relatively small number of individuals who were insiders.
5. There is a movement afoot to reverse this situation. It would involve, basically, making corrections to the books that would reflect the original intentions behind the original agreements. This would involve the elimination of a huge amount of sovereign debt. Perhaps all of it. There is a potential to greatly reduce taxes and greatly increase projects serving the general welfare.
This last point has only recently been spoken of. I know of it from reading the Wilcock materials on the subject. However, it has been alluded to for almost 20 years now, by sources that most people would consider unreliable.
If actions occur which lend more credence to this story, then we might need to take a good look at those old sources. Those sources have been, if nothing else, tenacious. I myself am not yet convinced that those sources are who they claim to be.
This is only one of many stories that I hope will come to be more fully told and understood in the near future.