An article in the FT, the Mafia blamed for $134bn fake Treasury bills.
My first thought was, in the current world of quantitative easing, how could they tell the difference?
Reading on, a quote counters my scurrilous conclusion...
“They are all fraudulent, it’s obvious. We don’t even have paper securities outstanding for that value,’’ said Mckayla Braden, senior adviser for public affairs at the Bureau of Public Debt at the US Treasury department.Apparently your Treasury is up there in the interweb age and has been for some time.
Since the 1980s they have been issuing these kind of bonds by making electrons do fancy things that you probably don't want to think about!
Phwhat I hear you ask, were these, allegedly Japanese, men in their 50s intending to do with the funny money? Buy drugs, guns, small children and other animals and fish, stolen works of art, influence in high places, a country even; no of course not.
It seems this kind of thing has been going on for a while and in a similar case recently, a mere $1bn...
The fake bonds were to have been used as collateral to open credit lines with banks, Reuters news agency reported.Very sound! Very sound!
