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AIG sues Bank of America for $10 billion
2011-08-08, The Globe and Mail/Reuters News
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/aig-sues-bank-of-america-for-10...

The insurer AIG is suing Bank of America to recover more than $10 billion of losses from a "massive fraud" on mortgage debt, deepening the morass of litigation faced by the largest U.S. bank. American International Group Inc, still largely owned by taxpayers after $182.3-billion of government bailouts, is the latest of a growing number of investors filing lawsuits to hold banks responsible for losses on soured mortgages that contributed to the financial crisis. The AIG complaint accuses Bank of America and its Countrywide and Merrill Lynch units of misrepresenting the quality of mortgages placed in securities and sold to investors. "Defendants were engaged in a massive scheme to manipulate and deceive investors, like AIG, who had no alternative but to rely on the lies and omissions made," said the complaint, being filed in the New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan. Bank of America bought Countrywide for $2.5 billion in July 2008 and acquired Merrill six months later. The Countrywide acquisition is almost universally considered a disaster because of the costs of litigation and writing down bad loans.

Note: For lots more from reliable sources on the government bailout of major banks and Wall Street corporations, click here.

Banking Run Amok Is Less Likely a Year After Dodd-Frank
2011-07-17, Bloomberg News
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-07-17/banking-run-amok-is-less-likely-a-ye...

With the first anniversary of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law on July 21, ... what has it accomplished? Consumer advocates, many congressional Democrats and some economists say banks are still too big, the derivatives market remains untamed and opaque, and regulators have been slow to write hundreds of rules. Rules forcing most derivatives trades to be processed through clearinghouses, and backed by collateral, should ... be accepted globally to avoid regulatory arbitrage, in which trading firms move to countries with the least intrusive, and lowest cost, oversight. Less than three years ago, the financial system almost buckled under the weight of worthless mortgages, and the country narrowly avoided another Great Depression. Regulators had been blind to the credit boom and bust; banks took huge risks that exploited regulatory gaps. Today, the economy remains weak ... because of the lingering fallout of the financial crisis. Dodd-Frank isn’t perfect, but already its influence on the financial system has been positive, in ways big and small. Accounting is more transparent; off-balance-sheet assets are largely a thing of the past. [Yet] with the top 10 U.S. banks holding 77 percent of the industry’s domestic assets, compared with 55 percent in 2002, too-big-to-fail is an even bigger worry today. Thomas M. Hoenig, the Kansas City Federal Reserve president, has said that the incentives for risk-taking that existed before the crisis all remain in place.

Note: For many of the most informative reports from major media sources on the financial meltdown and government bailout of the biggest banks, click here.

Bernanke's worst nightmare: Ron Paul
2010-11-12, CNN
http://money.cnn.com/2010/11/12/news/economy/Bernanke_Paul/index.htm

Ben Bernanke has had his hands full since his first day on the job as Federal Reserve chairman nearly five years ago. It's about to get even tougher. His harshest critic on Capitol Hill, Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, is about to become one of his overseers. Paul, who would like to abolish the Fed and the nation's current monetary system, will become the chairman of the House Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy. Paul doesn't think he'll be able to move his proposal to eliminate the Fed. But he said he does intend to use his new position as "a mini-bully pulpit" to criticize Fed policy and call more attention to what he sees as its negative consequences. And Paul vows to try again to authorize Congressional audits of the Fed's decisions on the economy, a proposal that passed the House last year but was essentially gutted from the final version of the financial regulatory overhaul legislation. Paul argues the Fed is making a serious mistake by pumping more money into the economy to try to spur more spending and growth. He predicts it will only lead to further declines in value of the dollar, inflation and higher interest rates rather than the lower rates the Fed is shooting for. Paul thinks that will bring about another economic crisis.

Note: To understand why Congressman Ron Paul wants to eliminate the Federal Reserve, click here.

'Run on UK' sees foreign investors pull $1 trillion out of the City
2009-03-07, The Independent (One of the U.K.'s leading newspapers)
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/run-on-uk-sees=foreign-invest...

A silent $1 trillion "Run on Britain" by foreign investors was revealed yesterday in the latest statistical releases from the Bank of England. The external liabilities of banks operating in the UK – that is monies held in the UK on behalf of foreign investors – fell by $1 trillion (£700bn) between the spring and the end of 2008, representing a huge loss of funds and of confidence in the City of London. Some $597.5bn was lost to the banks in the last quarter of last year alone, after a ... massive $682.5bn haemorrhaged in the second quarter of 2008 – a record. About 15 per cent of the monies held by foreigners in the UK were withdrawn over the period. This is by far the largest withdrawal of foreign funds from the UK in recent decades – about 10 times what might flow out during a "normal" quarter. The revelation will fuel fears that the UK's reputation as a safe place to hold funds is being fatally compromised by the acute crisis in the banking system and a general trend to financial protectionism internationally. The slide in sterling – it has shed a quarter of its value since mid-2007 – has been both cause and effect of the run on London, seemingly becoming a self-fulfilling phenomenon. The danger is that the heavy depreciation of the pound could become a rout if confidence completely evaporates. Paranoia that the UK could follow Iceland into effective national insolvency and jibes about "Reykjavik on Thames" will find an unwelcome substantiation in these statistics.

Note: For many deep revelations of the realities of the world financial crisis from reliable sources, click here.

Bair Says Insurance Fund Could Be Insolvent This Year
2009-03-04, Bloomberg News
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=washingtonstory&sid=alsJZqIFuN3k

Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Sheila Bair said the fund it uses to protect customer deposits at U.S. banks could dry up amid a surge in bank failures, as she responded to an industry outcry against new fees approved by the agency. “Without these assessments, the deposit insurance fund could become insolvent this year,” Bair wrote in a March 2 letter to the industry. “A large number” of bank failures may occur through 2010 because of “rapidly deteriorating economic conditions.” The fund, which lost $33.5 billion in 2008, was drained by 25 bank failures last year. Sixteen banks have failed so far this year, further straining the fund. Smaller banks are outraged over the one-time fee ... Camden Fine, president of the Independent Community Bankers of America, said yesterday. The agency, which has released the change for 30 days of public comment, could modify the assessment to shift the burden to the large banks “that caused this train wreck,” Fine said. “Community bankers are feeling like they are paying for the incompetence and greed of Wall Street,” he said. Consumers should watch this issue closely, said Edmund Mierzwinski, consumer program director at U.S. PIRG, a Boston- based consumer-watchdog group. “I wouldn’t take their money out of the bank yet,” Mierzwinski said. “If the FDIC is saying that there is this serious problem, then we should all be concerned. I think there is a chance the FDIC is going to have to ask taxpayers for money in the future.”

Note: For lots more on the financial crisis from reliable sources, click here.

Goldman, JPMorgan Won’t Feel Effects of Executive-Salary Caps
2009-02-05, Bloomberg News
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=washingtonstory&sid=azVLk.22AkLI

Executives at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and hundreds of financial institutions receiving federal aid aren’t likely to be affected by pay restrictions announced yesterday by President Barack Obama. The rules, created in response to growing public anger about the record bonuses the financial industry doled out last year, will apply only to top executives at companies that need “exceptional” assistance in the future. The limits aren’t retroactive, meaning firms that have already taken government money won’t be subject to the restrictions unless they have to come back for more. Pay caps may provide the political cover the administration needs to deliver additional infusions of capital into the financial sector. Obama ... “is not proposing to go back and get that $18.4 billion in bonuses back,” Laura Thatcher, head of law firm Alston & Bird’s executive compensation practice in Atlanta, said of the cash bonuses New York banks paid last year, the sixth-biggest haul in history. “Right now, we have not clamped down” on pay at banks. In addition, some executives may be compensated for the potential reduced salaries with restricted stock grants, which may result in huge paydays after the bank repays the government assistance with interest. “They’re just allowing companies to defer compensation,” said Graef Crystal, a former compensation consultant. The restrictions are “a joke,” he said, because “if the government is paid pack, you can be sure that the stock will have risen hugely.”

Note: For many revealing reports from reliable sources on the realities behind the Wall Street bailout, click here.

Mukasey Declines to Create a U.S. Task Force to Investigate Mortgage Fraud
2008-06-06, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/06/business/06justice.html?partner=rssuserland...

Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey rejected ... the idea of creating a national task force to combat the country’s mortgage fraud crisis, calling the problem a localized one akin to “white-collar street crimes.” He gave his most definitive answer ... in a briefing for reporters, saying that he did not think that the kind of national task force created at the Justice Department in 2002 to investigate the collapse of Enron was “the proper response” to the current crisis. Some critics have called for the same sort of broad federal law enforcement response seen in the Enron case and a wave of other corporate scandals earlier this decade, or in the collapse of the savings and loan industry in the 1980s and 1990s. “This is disappointing,” Representative Barney Frank, the Massachusetts Democrat who leads the House financial services committee, said. Calling the mortgage crisis “worse than Enron,” Mr. Frank said “Enron didn’t cause a worldwide recession. This has more innocent victims.” Mr. Frank noted that a $2.4 billion bill to prevent mortgage foreclosure, which has already passed the House, includes a provision backed by Republicans to provide an additional $300 million for law enforcement officials to fight mortgage fraud. He questioned how that money could be spent without a more centralized effort. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is investigating 19 major corporate fraud cases related to the mortgage crisis. The targets of most of those investigations have not been disclosed. In addition, the F.B.I. has 1,380 small mortgage fraud investigations now open in field offices around the country.

Note: For many powerful reports on government corruption, click here.

Secretly, tiny nations hold much wealth
2005-04-25, Christian Science Monitor
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0425/p17s01-cogn.html

They're tax havens: 70 mostly tiny nations that offer no-tax or low-tax status to the wealthy so they can stash their money. Usually, the process is so secret that it draws little attention. But the sums - and lost tax revenues - are growing so large that the havens are getting new and unaccustomed scrutiny. There are about 3 million shell companies (set up largely to duck taxes) in offshore tax havens, Komisar reckons. These tiny tax havens hold 31 percent of total world assets and 26 percent of the stock of US multinationals.

End Is Seen to Free Checking
2010-06-16, Wall Street Journal
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703513604575311093932315142.html

Bank of America Corp. and other banks are preparing new fees on basic banking services as they try to replace revenue lost to regulatory rules, in a push that is expected to spell an end to free checking accounts for many Americans. Free checking accounts, which have been widely available for more than a decade, have been a boon to middle-class consumers and attracted low-income customers to the banking system for the first time. Customers will likely be required to pay new monthly maintenance fees on the most basic accounts that don't generate a lot of activity. To avoid a fee, customers will have to maintain certain account balances or frequently use other banking services, such as credit and debit cards, automated teller machines and online accounts. Some consumer advocates warn the new fees will whack consumers who now manage their bank accounts to avoid such charges. The transformation of checking accounts comes at a time when banks are bouncing back from the steepest financial losses in a generation and are facing new regulations. To accelerate that recovery and recoup losses from new banking rules, financial institutions are increasingly leaning on customers who don't now generate enough revenue for the bank.

Note: Why hasn't the federal government protected consumers from this sort of response by the banking industry to new regulations imposed after the massive taxpayer bailout of these failing corporations?

AT&T, Verizon to Target Visa, MasterCard With Smartphones
2010-08-02, Bloomberg News
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-02/at-t-verizon-said-to-target-visa-mas...

AT&T Inc. and Verizon Wireless, the biggest U.S. mobile carriers, are planning a venture to displace credit and debit cards with smartphones, posing a new threat to Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc., three people with direct knowledge of the plan said. The trial would be the carriers’ biggest effort to spur mobile payments in the U.S. and supplant more than 1 billion plastic cards in American wallets. Smartphones have encroached on tasks ranging from Web browsing to street navigation and now may help the phone companies compete with San Francisco-based Visa and MasterCard, the world’s biggest payments networks. The service, similar to those already available in Japan, Turkey and the U.K., would use contactless technology to complete purchases in stores. They’d be processed through Discover’s payments network, currently the fourth-biggest behind Visa, MasterCard and American Express Co. Barclays would be the bank helping to manage the accounts, said the people, who requested anonymity because of confidentiality agreements. Retailers may be eager to help another network after years of fighting over transaction fees set by Visa and MasterCard.

Facing foreclosure? Don't leave. Squat
2009-02-04, San Francisco Chronicle (San Francisco's leading newspaper)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/02/04/EDK215MNA0.DTL

Marcy Kaptur of Ohio is the longest-serving Democratic congresswoman in U.S. history. Her district, stretching along the shore of Lake Erie from west of Cleveland to Toledo, faces an epidemic of home foreclosures and 11.5 percent unemployment. Now, she is recommending a radical foreclosure solution from the floor of the U.S. Congress: "So I say to the American people, you be squatters in your own homes. Don't you leave." She criticizes the bailout's failure to protect homeowners facing foreclosure. These mortgages were made, then bundled into securities and sold and resold repeatedly, by the very Wall Street banks that are now benefiting from [a government bailout]. The banks foreclosing on families very often can't locate the actual loan note that binds the homeowner to the bad loan. "Produce the note," Kaptur recommends [to] those facing foreclosure demands of the banks. "[P]ossession is nine-tenths of the law," Rep. Kaptur [said]. "Therefore, stay in your property. Get proper legal representation ... [if] Wall Street cannot produce the deed nor the mortgage audit trail ... you should stay in your home. It is your castle. It's more than a piece of property. ... If you look at the bad paper, if you look at where there's trouble, 95 to 98 percent of the paper really has moved to five institutions: JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wachovia, Citigroup and HSBC. They have this country held by the neck."

Note: Why is it that with the trillions of dollars given by the U.S. government to prop up banks who used shady loan practices, so few homeowners facing foreclosure have received any assistance? For many revealing reports on the realities of the Wall Street bailout, click here.

US and EU agree 'single market'
2007-04-30, BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6607757.stm

The United States and the European Union have signed up to a new transatlantic economic partnership at a summit in Washington. The pact is designed to boost trade and investment by harmonising regulatory standards, laying the basis for a US-EU single market. The two sides agreed to set up an "economic council" to push ahead with regulatory convergence in nearly 40 areas, including intellectual property, financial services, business takeovers and the motor industry. The aim is to increase trade and lower costs. Some reports suggest that incompatible regulations in the world's two richest regions add 10% to the cost of developing and producing new cars.

Note: Why is this important news getting such minimal press coverage?

Congressional Testimony of DOD Inspector General - Report No. D-2001-120
2001-05-08, Department of Defense Inspector General's Website
http://www.dodig.osd.mil/Audit/reports/fy01/01-120.pdf

Statement of Robert J Lieberman, Deputy Inspector General, Department of Defense, Before the Subcommittee on Governmental Efficiency, Financial Management and Intergovernmental Relations, House Committee on Government Reform of Defense Financial Management. The extensive DoD efforts to compile and audit the FY 2000 financial statements, for the Department as a whole and for the 10 subsidiary reporting entities like the Army, Navy and Air Force General Funds, could not overcome the impediments caused by poor systems and unreliable documentation of transactions and assets. Some examples of the problems in these year-end statements follow. Department-level accounting adjustment entries used to compile the financial statements were $4.4 trillion, with $1.1 trillion of those unsupported by reliable explanatory information and audit trails. This is an improvement from FY 1999, when $7.6 trillion of adjustments were made with $2.3 trillion unsupported, but remains a good indication of the need for wholesale changes to the financial data reporting systems. Accurate reporting of inventory and property remains a continuing challenge for each of the Military Departments and Defense Logistics Agency because of problems in logistics and other feeder systems. Although the DoD has put a full decade of effort into improving its financial reporting, it seems that everyone involved-—the Congress, the Office of Management and Budget, the audit community, and DoD managers—-have been unable to determine or clearly articulate exactly how much progress has been made.

Overall, about 5.6 million people moved their bank accounts in the last quarter of 2011
2012-01-27, Reuters News
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/27/us-bank-transfer-idUSTRE80Q1TU20120127

More than 600,000 U.S. consumers have moved their money from big banks to community banks or credit unions, thanks to the much-publicized Bank Transfer Day last fall, according to an analysis released by Javelin Strategy & Research. The grassroots campaign to get people to shift out of big banks capitalized on the nationwide Occupy Wall Street movement, and picked up further momentum from a Bank of America plan in September to charge customers a $5 per month debit card fee. "It was a meaningful movement of people from big banks into small community banks and credit unions ..." said Jim Van Dyke, founder of Javelin. Historically, people don't switch banks easily, even if they are unhappy, Van Dyke says. Consumers have strong ties to their banks because of direct deposit, automated bill payments and habit -- making change more complex than simply going someplace else. "Individuals are really resistant to moving their money out of banks," Van Dyke says. Overall, about 5.6 million people moved their bank accounts in the last quarter of 2011, Javelin says. Account changes attributed to Bank Transfer Day represented about 11 percent of total moves.

Note: As the article mentions, people rarely change banks, so the fact that 6 million changed banks in three months is quite impressive!

Wall Street protest movement spreads to cities across US, Canada and Europe
2011-10-04, The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/oct/04/wall-street-protest-movement-spreads

It began as the brainchild of activists across the border in Canada when an anti-consumerism magazine put out a call in July for supporters to occupy Wall Street. Now, three weeks after a few hundred people heeded that initial call and rolled out their sleeping bags in a park in New York's financial district, they are being joined by supporters in cities across the US and beyond. Protesters against corporate greed, unemployment and the political corruption that they say Wall Street represents have taken to the streets in Boston, Los Angeles, St Louis and Kansas City. The core group, Occupy Wall Street, claims people will take part in demonstrations in as many as 147 US cities this month, while the website occupytogether.org lists 47 US states as being involved. Around the world, protests in Canada, the UK, Germany and Sweden are also planned, they say. The speed of the leaderless movement's growth has taken many by surprise. The movement, which organisers say has its roots in the Arab spring and in Madrid's Puerta del Sol protests, has been galvanised by recent media attention. Last week, the Guardian reported that a NYPD police officer had been filmed spraying four women protesters with pepper spray. On Saturday, a peaceful march on Brooklyn bridge intended as a call to the other four boroughs of New York to join in resulted in 700 arrests. Some protesters claim the police trapped them.

Note: For insights into the reasons why people have decided they must occupy their cities in protest of the predations of financial corporations, check out our extensive "Banking Bailout" news articles.

Trader tells BBC 'millions of people's savings will vanish'
2011-09-26, The Telegraph (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/8790719/Trader-tells-BBC-m...

An independent trader, appearing on BBC News, reveal[ed] that he thinks banks and hedge funds believe the stock market 'is toast'. Alessio Rastani said that Goldman Sachs rules the world, not governments, and that Goldman Sachs “don't care about this rescue package” because they know “the stock market is finished” and they “don't really care” about the Euro. US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said over the weekend: "Sovereign and banking stresses in Europe are the most serious risk now confronting the world economy. Decisions cannot wait until the crisis gets more severe." He has proposed the so-called Geithner plan which will leverage the EU's €440bn bail-out fund (EFSF) from €440bn to €2 trillion to cope with Italy and Spain. But according to Mr Rastani it may already be too late as: “In less than twelve months, my prediction is, the savings of millions of people are going to vanish.”

Note: To watch the full BBC video of this most unusual interview, click here. For lots more on the fraudulent practices of major financial firms, click here.

Sharpton Appears to Win Anchor Spot on MSNBC
2011-07-21, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/21/business/media/sharpton-close-to-being-msnb...

After giving a nearly six-month tryout for the Internet talk show host Cenk Uygur, the cable news channel MSNBC is preparing to instead hand its 6 p.m. time slot to the Rev. Al Sharpton. Cenk Uygur said MSNBC's management decided that they did not care for his aggressive style. Mr. Uygur, who had been made a paid contributor to MSNBC months earlier, was handed 6 p.m., a big coup given that he had earlier campaigned to have his progressive Web show “The Young Turks” picked up by MSNBC. Mr. Uygur, who by most accounts was well liked within MSNBC, said in an interview that he turned down the new contract because he felt [MSNBC President Phil] Griffin had been the recipient of political pressure. In April, he said, Mr. Griffin “called me into his office and said that he’d been talking to people in Washington, and that they did not like my tone.” He said he guessed Mr. Griffin was referring to White House officials, though he had no evidence for the assertion. He also said that Mr. Griffin said the channel was part of the “establishment,” and “that you need to act like it.”

Note: To understand why Uygur was forced out by powerful forces behind the scenes, watch the amazing 10-minute video of him exposing the blatant corruption of the bankers at this link. For an interview of MSNBC's Keith Olbermann on Uygur's resignation, click here.

Allied Irish Banks to pay €40m bonuses despite bailout
2010-12-08, The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/dec/08/allied-irish-banks-pay-bonuses...

Stricken Allied Irish Banks is preparing to hand out €40m (£34m) of bonuses next week – despite being on the brink of receiving another emergency bailout from the Irish government. As many as 2,400 bankers in its Dublin capital markets division are to receive the payments on 17 December under agreements struck with the bank in 2008. The bank, 19% owned by Ireland's taxpayers but expected to reach 95% state-ownership, had originally been blocked from making the payments under one of the government's bailout programmes. But legal action by a trader, John Foy, over a deferred €161,000 bonus awarded in 2008 has led the bank to conclude it will need to pay bonuses to many of the staff to whom they were awarded for that year. The bonuses are being handed out at a time when the government is instigating four years of tax rises and brutal cuts to benefits. Bankers are receiving much of the blame for forcing Ireland to take international assistance and implement the austerity budgetary measures.

Note: For lots more from reliable sources on the worldwide bailout by taxpayers of failed banks, click here.

Mondragón Worker-Operatives Decide How to Ride Out a Downturn
2009-07-00, Yes! Magazine
http://www.yesmagazine.org/article.asp?id=3511

The Mondragón Cooperative Corporation (MCC), the largest consortium of worker-owned companies, has developed a different way of doing business—a way that puts workers, not shareholders, first. Here’s how it played out when one of the Mondragón cooperatives fell on hard times. The worker/owners and the managers met to review their options. After three days of meetings, the worker/owners agreed that 20 percent of the workforce would leave their jobs for a year, during which they would continue to receive 80 percent of their pay and, if they wished, free training for other work. This group would be chosen by lottery, and if the company was still in trouble a year later, the first group would return to work and a second would take a year off. The result? The solution worked and the company thrives to this day. The central importance of workers permeates every aspect of the Mondragón Cooperatives. Even though the MCC businesses are affected by the global financial crisis, there is no unemployment within the MCC businesses. People are moved around to other jobs, or hours are cut without cutting pay. The wages for unworked hours are to be repaid through extra hours worked later in the year. Contrary to what some advocates of top-down management say, this worker-centered focus hasn’t been an obstacle to growth. Founded in 1956 by Father Don Jose Arizmendi, a Basque Catholic priest, the Mondragón cooperatives today comprise more than 100 cooperatives, as well as more than 100 subsidiaries that MCC has purchased and hopes to convert. Altogether, MCC companies employ more than 100,000 worker/owners and in 2007 generated revenues of more than $24 billion.

Mystery of Fake U.S. Bonds Fuels Web Theories
2009-06-26, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/26/business/global/26fake.html

Ever since two middle-aged men with Japanese passports were caught in Italy this month trying to smuggle a purported $134.5 billion in United States government bearer bonds into Switzerland, the Internet has been abuzz with theories. In all, the Italian financial police and customs guards confiscated 249 paper bonds, each supposedly worth $500 million, and 10 bonds with a face value of $1 billion each. After reports of the seizure began to trickle out of Italy, the blogosphere sprang into action, the ponderings fueled by suspicions that the mainstream media was willfully ignoring the tale. The story took on greater life after Italian authorities — who have refused to talk about the scandal — declined to declare the bonds fakes until they were examined by Washington. Col. Rodolfo Mecarelli, the provincial commander of the financial police in Como, said the investigations were focused on “understanding who these men were and where they were from.” Also unknown are the whereabouts of the two men, who were released after being stopped in early June. “The men were questioned, but not arrested,” said Naoki Oyakawa, an official at the Japanese consulate in Milan. He said the two men had valid Japanese passports, but he would not elaborate further on their identities. “We don’t know where they are now,” he said. “We have had no contact with the two men. They have not asked us for our help.” What the bonds were for remains unclear. “It’s not the sort of thing that you can just go into a bank and convert,” said Colonel Mecarelli. “But they may have been useful to guarantee business deals among people who don’t use cash.” Agencies that deal with financial crimes, including Europol, declined to comment while the Italian investigation was still under way.”

Note: Although this dismissive article asserts that the bonds seized are fakes, many odd circumstances remain unexplained, including the "unknown" identity of the smugglers and why they would smuggle fake securities. The US, Italian and Japanese authorities and mainstream media again have failed to report something of potential significance.

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