WASHINGTON (AFP) — The United States indicated Thursday that 134 billion dollars in purported US bonds seized by Italian police last week were fakes.
Stephen Meyerhardt, spokesman for the Bureau of Public Debt in Washington, told AFP, "They look nothing like real Treasury securities."
"All we've seen is a photograph that's been moved on the Internet. But just with that we can tell that those are not real Treasury securities," he added.
Italian authorities last week held two Japanese men on the Swiss border with the 249 "Federal Reserve bonds" with a face value of 500 million dollars each along with 10 so-called "Kennedy bonds" worth one billion dollars apiece.
In Washington, officials pointed out that there are no Federal Reserve or Kennedy bonds issued by the United States.
The spokesman said that Treasury securities had been issued and traded electronically since 1996.
Italian financial police said the alleged bonds were found in a false-bottomed suitcase.
The two middle-aged men were trying to enter Switzerland from Italy by train when they were checked by customs at Chiasso after saying they had nothing to declare.
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved. More »
