Is this the death of the dollar?

[Fainter]

Source: Telegraph.co.uk

Border guards in Chiasso see plenty of smugglers and plenty of false-bottomed suitcases, but no one in the town, which straddles the Italian-Swiss frontier, had ever seen anything like this. Trussed up in front of the police in the train station were two Japanese men, and beside them a suitcase with booty unlike any other. Concealed at the bottom of the bag were some rather incredible sheets of paper. The documents were apparently dollar-denominated US government bonds with a face value of a staggering $134bn(L81bn).

How on earth did these two men, who at first refused to identify themselves, come to be there, trying to ride the train into Switzerland carrying bonds worth more than the gross domestic product of Singapore? If the bonds were genuine, the pair would have been America's fourth-biggest creditor, ahead of the UK and just behind Russia. No sooner had the story leaked out from the Italian lakes region last week than it sparked a panoply of conspiracy tales. BUT ONE RESOUNDED MORE THAN THAN ANY OTHER: THAT THE MEN WERE AGENTS OF THE JAPANESE FINANCE MINISTRY, IN THE COUNTRY FOR THE G8 MEETING, MAKING A SURREPTITIOUS JOURNEY INTO SWITZERLAND TO SELL OFF ONE SMALL CHUNK OF THE MASSIVE MOUNTAIN OF US BONDS STACKED UP IN THE JAPANESE TREASURY VAULTS.

Read more: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/5586543/Is-this-the-death-of-the-dollar.html

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http://www.reuters.com/article/bondsNews/idUSN1946360420090619

Despite the Reuters story Friday reporting the U.S. Treasury Department's statement that the seized bonds are fake, many questions remain. Why haven't the smugglers been named? Why have they not been charged? Are they still in custody? Where is the accompanying documentation showing how the Treasury Department made its determination that the bonds were forged? Where are the bonds themselves? If they're fake, wouldn't they be evidence in some future proceeding? If they're not, won't the Japanese Finance Ministry be wanting their $134,000,000,000(billion) back?

Given the sovereign amount of the value of these bonds, why didn't the alleged counterfeiters forge these instruments inside Switzerland instead of undertaking a risky smuggling operation? Would sophisticated counterfeiters really forge instruments of such outlandish face value with any kind of reasonable expectation they could pass them off? Who conceivably would be in the market for a single $500,000,000(million) bond, let alone more than two hundred of them?

I suspect the bonds are authentic and will be quietly returned to the Japanese.

For more on Dollarmageddon, view the following thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=125x148214#148324

ETA:

To wit, the Japanese were apprehended trying to be the first ones out of the gate. And why wasn't this hushed up through diplomatic channels? Because Tokyo is happy to send a very stern warning to America to which they know all of her creditors will be very receptive.