The G Manifesto

Chiasso: The Largest Financial Smuggling Operation in History?

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U.S. bonds worth an astounding $134.5 billion were seized by Italian police as smugglers attempted to cross into Switzerland earlier this month. Authorities have not indicated if they are real or fake, but either way, it could have implications for the U.S. bond market and the value of the dollar.

AsiaNews is reporting that Italy’s financial police seized bonds worth $134.5 billion from two Japanese nationals at Chiasso, an Italian border city known for catering to Italians who want to keep their money out of the Italian banking system. The confiscations include 249 U.S. Federal Reserve bonds each worth $500 million, plus 10 Kennedy bonds with face values of $1 billion, in addition to various other bonds.

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If proven real, it “would be the largest financial smuggling operation in history,” says AsiaNews.

But if the bonds are authentic, it raises the question: Who do they belong to? The high face-values of the bonds are not available in regular banking and financial markets and are typically only handled by states. That would mean that some government is trying to sell a huge chunk of its dollar holdings.

But which? There are very few countries that would be able to move such large amounts. $138 billion is approximately half the total value of all goods and services produced in a year by Iran (which is a major oil exporter). Only three candidates are easily identifiable: Japan, China and the United States.

Although China has been very vocal about diversifying its reserves away from the dollar, since the two foreign nationals arrested were supposedly Japanese, Japan is for obvious reasons the prime suspect.

The Italian daily Adnkronos did not report the official charges against the two nationals, but indicated they may have been detained on suspicion of attempting to take a large amount of securities out of Italy without declaring it.

But why would Japan risk covertly moving tens of billions across country lines in a briefcase with a false bottom? Was this an attempt to quietly unload U.S. treasuries without having to sell them on the open market and risk setting off a market stampede and causing a dollar panic?

“Notice, by the way, that the U.S. media has totally ignored this story—even though the securities in question are allegedly U.S. instruments,” writes Karl Denninger for The Market Ticker. “Might the authorities know they’re real and be just a wee bit nervous that disclosure of a sovereign attempting to covertly dump nearly $140 billion in debt could cause a wee bit of panic, given that we’re running nearly $200 billion a month in deficits?” (June 11).

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For now, the jury is still out. The bonds may very well turn out to be forgeries. But even if the bonds are fake, the matter might be even more worrisome, and not just because it would be “the biggest counterfeiting operation ever, by a factor of many times” (ibid.). AsiaNews ominously reports: “[T]he quality of the counterfeit work is such that the fake bonds are indistinguishable from the real ones.”

Picture the Bernie Madoff fraud times two—and that is if this is the only incident.

High-quality fraudulent treasury bonds measured in the hundreds of billions is the last thing the U.S. government needs to deal with right now. The U.S government is attempting to find lenders to finance record spending and stimulus packages to prop up the U.S. economy. Meanwhile, it is trying to convince those same investors that the dollar will not be devalued, and that it is a stable store of wealth. Hundreds of billions of fraudulent securities does nothing to secure that faith.

Students of history will know that various countries have counterfeited currencies of foreign nations to influence currency exchange rates and undermine faith in foreign central banks. Even today, North Korea is known for counterfeiting the U.S. $100 bills. It is possible that something along those lines is occurring here too.

This is a story that deserves watching. The ramifications could be very significant.

Source

A few points need considering:

1. When it comes to Italy the world press has tended to focus on Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi’s personal problems rather than on stories like the bonds smuggling affair which has been front page on Italian newspapers.

2. The fear of counterfeit bonds and securities has spread across Asia with the result that real securities are also considered with suspicion.

3. During the Second World War several countries at war printed and put in circulation perfectly counterfeit enemy money. It is also historically established that some central banks, like the Bank of Italy 65 years ago, issued the same securities twice (identical registered number and code). This way they could print more money with legal tender than they officially declared. The main difference though is that 65 years ago the world was involved in a bloody war, which is not the case today.

Source

Click Here for MAJOR FOREIGN HOLDERS OF TREASURY SECURITIES

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Thanks to Glengarry for sending this over.

The Rest is Up to You…

Michael Porfirio Mason
AKA The Peoples Champ
AKA GFK, Jr.
AKA The Sly, Slick and the Wicked
AKA The Voodoo Child
The Guide to Getting More out of Life
http://www.thegmanifesto.com

Loose Ends – Dial 999 (1983)

The Del Mar Racetrack: 3 O’ CLOCK FRIDAYS this Year

Click Here for The G Manifesto’s The Del Mar Racetrack Part II

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I got the inside knowledge.

Since Mondays are canceled this year, due to The Down Economy, they are adding more races to Fridays. Hence the hour earlier post time.

So instead of 4 to 7 it goes from 3 to 7. (If it were up to me, I would have made it 4 to 8. I would also make prostitution legal, gambling legal everywhere, Cigarette smoking legal, Ecstasy legal, Models everywhere and have drinking 24hours, but maybe that just me.)

It is a pleasant change to have something change for the better.

All in all, not bad as it give you another hour to swoop more girls.

http://www.dmtc.com/season/events/concert

You heard it here first.

Peep these Del Mar Race Track resources:

Click Here for Surf and Turf: The Race Track
Click Here for The Del Mar Racetrack Part II
Click Here for The Del Mar Race Track: How to Dress for the Horse Races
Click Here for The Del Mar Race Track: Dope Style, Wack Style
Click Here for Opening Day Del Mar Race Track Pictures
Click Here for Del Mar Race Track Considers Shortening Season

Countdown to first post: 41 days, 1:36, 42 seconds.

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The Rest is Up to You…

Michael Porfirio Mason
AKA The Peoples Champ
AKA GFK, Jr.
AKA The Sly, Slick and the Wicked
AKA The Voodoo Child
The Guide to Getting More out of Life
http://www.thegmanifesto.com

Happy – Killah Priest

Sick Sample of course from:

Minnie Rippleton – Inside My Love

Death of “Corporate Cool” W Hotel San Diego

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Sunstone Hotel Investors Inc. intends to forfeit the 258-room W San Diego to its lenders after its efforts to reach a compromise on the luxury hotel’s $65 million securitized mortgage failed.

Sunstone, a real-estate investment trust that owns 43 hotels, bought the W for $96 million in 2006 from a group led by developer Gatehouse Capital Corp. Since then, the slumping performance of the W San Diego and the broader hotel market has made supporting that mortgage a challenge for Sunstone.

Foreclosures and forfeitures of hotels are becoming commonplace in this recession, though a public REIT turning over a high-profile, luxury property still is rare. Default rates on securitized mortgages backed by hotels have risen sharply as travelers have cut back, occupancies and revenues have tanked and, subsequently, hotel owners have run into difficulty making their debt payments. To wit, 3.16% of securitized mortgages backed by hotels now are delinquent on payments as compared to just 0.44% at this time last year, according to Trepp LLC.

A recent report by the special servicer of the W’s mortgage, Centerline Serving Inc., noted that the W San Diego since 2007 has failed to generate enough monthly income to cover both its operating costs and its interest payments. Sunstone has been covering the shortfall since 2007 to keep the loan out of default, but it opted this month to stop doing so.

The W San Diego has suffered partly because of the national decline in business and leisure travel. Additionally, in its downtown location it isn’t within convenient walking distance from San Diego’s Gaslamp District or the San Diego Convention Center, . said John Arabia, an analyst with real estate research company Green Street Advisors Inc.

Source

The whole Hotel Industry is going to reel from this.

The more I think about this, these “boutique party hotels” (mostly phony and corporate anyways) are really in trouble.

Their target demographic 25-39 or so, is really hurting of liquid cash these days. Striped shirts are toe tagged. Plastic tiaras and lame “girls nights out” aren’t going to cut it.

The 40 to 50 monied crowd, or older couples with money won’t go to these places (too loud, too frugal etc).

Any 25 to 39 year olds with half a brain are going to skip eating and partying at these places because the food quality and girl quality is so low and price points are so high. (You can’t drag me there unless it’s a special event or they start importing Eastern Block and South American Models).

I think its game over for the ubiquitous “Corporate Cool” of the last 6 years. (Thank Goodness). Unless they decide to legalize prostitution and turn these things into High-End Brothels.

Witness the rise of the Hipster/Wimpster. (No Thanks).

Click Here for Drug Smugglers on Drug Smuggling: Lessons from the Inside

Click Here for The G Manifesto on Smuggling

The Rest is Up to You…

Michael Porfirio Mason
AKA The Peoples Champ
AKA GFK, Jr.
AKA The Sly, Slick and the Wicked
AKA The Voodoo Child
The Guide to Getting More out of Life
http://www.thegmanifesto.com

Mickey Factz featuring The Cool Kids “Rockin N Rollin”

Acapulco: Shoot Out

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Click Here for Cocaine Trafficking in Latin America

Click Here for Narcocorrido: A Journey into the Music of Drugs, Guns, and Guerrillas

Sixteen gunmen thought to be linked to drug cartels and two soldiers have been killed in clashes in the Mexican resort of Acapulco, officials say.

Several soldiers and bystanders were wounded in the two-hour battle, in an old area of the Pacific coast city.

Tourists were evacuated from several hotels in the neighbourhood.

The battle began on Saturday evening, when troops received a tip-off that the gunmen had occupied a house, an officer in charge of the operation told AP.

The gunmen threw grenades at the soldiers and crashed their car when trying to flee, he added. Others arrived as reinforcements but were killed in the fighting.

The BBC’s Stephen Gibbs in Mexico City says the fighting will be another deadly blow for Acapulco, whose tourist industry has recently been badly hit by the swine flu outbreak.

‘Rescue’

The officer says troops found four police officers when they entered the house, handcuffed and apparently held hostage.

“We found them like this, handcuffed, and they say they were kidnapped,” he said.

Click Here for The G Manifesto’s The Tijuana Report: There is a War going on Outside

Click Here for Cocaine Trafficking in Latin America

Click Here for Narcocorrido: A Journey into the Music of Drugs, Guns, and Guerrillas

“So, if they were kidnapped, as they say, then we rescued them.”

Troops seized 36 rifles, 13 shotguns, two hand grenades, 13 fragmentation hand grenades, 3,525 cartridges, 180 magazines and eight vehicles in the operation, AFP news agency said.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon launched a military campaign against drug cartels in 2006.

Tens of thousands of troops have since been deployed throughout the country to tackle drugs-related violence, which has claimed the lives of nearly 9,000 people in the last two years.

Acapulco has in the past been the scene of clashes between rival drug gangs but has been relatively free of violence in recent years, correspondents say.

Source

The Rest is Up to You…

Michael Porfirio Mason
AKA The Peoples Champ
AKA GFK, Jr.
AKA The Sly, Slick and the Wicked
AKA The Voodoo Child
The Guide to Getting More out of Life
http://www.thegmanifesto.com

Maria Rita – Novo Amor

Paris Jewel Heist for $8Million

Jewellery worth more than 6m euros (£5m, $8m) has been stolen from an exclusive Paris store in broad daylight by a lone gunman, police sources say.

Dressed in a custom suit and fedora, the man entered Chopard on Place Vendome and reportedly made staff hand over 15 pieces of jewellery at gunpoint.

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The mid-afternoon hold-up lasted two minutes, after which the robber, said to be in his 50s, calmly walked out.

Chopard jewellery is worn by stars at the Oscars and Cannes film festival.

Click Here for Borsalino Hats

Place Vendome is an elegant old square known for its luxury hotels, and is also home to numerous jewellery stores as well as the French justice ministry.

In December, armed robbers stole jewels worth at least 80m euros ($102m) from a store near the French capital’s famous Champs-Elysees avenue.

As many as four robbers, two disguised as women, raided the Harry Winston’s store and stole nearly all its valuables.

‘Like any other customer’

The Vendome robber struck just before 1500 (1300 GMT) on Saturday, at a time when, in good weather, the square is usually full of strollers.

“According to the first set of information we received, it was a man in his 50s, dressed in a chic costume and wearing a Borsalino [fedora] hat,” Olivier Lebon, a police union representative, told Reuters news agency.

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“He came in like any other customer, pointed his gun at employees and asked for about 15 pieces.”

It was not immediately known if the robber had an accomplice waiting for him outside the store.

A sales assistant working in an adjacent jeweller’s store told AFP news agency she had heard and seen nothing. “We were working,” she added.

Late on Saturday afternoon, the store at No 1 Place Vendome stood closed behind iron shutters, an AFP correspondent reports.

Only some leather handbags could be seen in the window, and no trace of a robbery could be seen from the outside.

The French capital was basking in sunshine on Saturday, with temperatures rising to a summery 23C, AFP reports.

At least some of the capital’s beau monde would have been attending the French Open, one of the tennis world’s most prestigious events, at the city’s Roland Garros stadium.

Among Chopard’s commissions is the Golden Palm awarded at the Cannes festival.

Founded in 1860, the firm has branches in major cities across the world.

Source

The Rest is Up to You…

Michael Porfirio Mason
AKA The Peoples Champ
AKA GFK, Jr.
AKA The Sly, Slick and the Wicked
AKA The Voodoo Child
The Guide to Getting More out of Life
http://www.thegmanifesto.com

Yelle – Je Veux Te Voir