Italy Busts International Terror Cell 17 Arrested

Italian authorities say they have cracked an international terror cell, with arrests made in several European countries. The group is accused of stealing money from soccer players to fund terrorist activities.

Seventeen Algerians have been arrested in cities across Europe in connection with an international terror cell, according to Italy’s top security official.

“We have proceeded with the arrest of six people in Italy and 17 in total,” Interior Minister Roberto Maroni told a news conference on Thursday. “We have dismantled an Algerian terrorist cell which collected funds to finance terrorist activity outside Italy.”

The ring is alleged to have stolen the identities of Algerian footballers playing in France, carried out armed robberies and burglaries, and sent the stolen goods to Algeria, a spokesman said.

“We think they selected the identities of certain Algerian soccer players playing in France because it was easy to obtain details about well-known people,” he added.

Officials say the group is also suspected of financing terrorist activities in Algeria, since some of their names appear on international watch lists.

The arrests – which were made in Italy, Algeria, Austria, Britain, France, Switzerland and Spain – were the result of an anti-terrorism investigation in Milan that started in 2007.

via Read Full Article.

$134 Billion In Seized US Bonds Are Fakes – Washington

U.S. government bonds found in the false bottom of a suitcase carried by two Japanese travelers attempting to cross into Switzerland are fake, a Treasury spokesman said.

“They’re clearly fakes,” Stephen Meyerhardt, a spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of the Public Debt in Washington, said yesterday. “That’s beyond the fact that the face value is far beyond what’s out there.”

Italy’s financial police last week said they asked the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to authenticate the seized bonds, with a face value of $134 billion. Colonel Rodolfo Mecarelli of the Guardia di Finanza in Como, Italy, said the securities, seized in Chiasso, Italy, were probably forgeries.

Meyerhardt said Treasury records show an estimated $105.4 million in bearer bonds have yet to be surrendered. Most matured more than five years ago, he said. The Treasury stopped issuing bearer bonds in 1982, Meyerhardt said.

Had the notes been genuine, the pair would have been the U.S. government’s fourth-biggest creditor, ahead of the U.K. with $128 billion of U.S. debt and just behind Russia, which is owed $138 billion.

Source

$134 Billion U.S. Bond Mystery Continues In Italy

2 Japanese Carrying $134 Billion In U.S. Bonds Detained In Italy

$134 Billion U.S. Bond Mystery Continues In Italy

National Terror Alert first reported this story via Twitter back on June 11th and finally it’s getting some press. The mystery however remains. Glenn Beck attempted to get some answers but due to the ongoing investigation no additional information is being released.

Background – According to Japan Today News, two Japanese nationals were detained by Italian financial police on June 3rd after trying to enter Switzerland with $134 billion worth of undeclared U.S. bonds, mostly Treasury bonds, according to an Italian daily. The Japanese consulate general in Milan confirmed that the detention had taken place and said it was trying to confirm the authenticity of the bonds.

Original Post

2 Japanese Carrying $134 Billion In U.S. Bonds Detained In Italy

Updated Story Via Times Online

Italian prosecutors were trying to establish yesterday whether US bonds with a face value of $134 billion seized from two alleged smugglers were real or counterfeit.

The bonds were found when the two men — said to be Japanese but as yet not identified — were arrested while attempting to cross into Switzerland from Italy by train at the frontier town of Chiasso this month. Prosecutors in Como said that the two men had hidden the bonds in the false bottom of a suitcase.

Police said that Chiasso was a notorious crossing point for currency and bond smugglers but the sums involved this time were “colossal”. The amount of $134 billion would place the two travelers as the fourth most important investors in US debt, well ahead of Britain ($128.2 billion) and just behind Russia ($138.4 billion).

Read More

Alleged Hacking-Terror Effort Thwarted

U.S. and Italian authorities said Friday they arrested a group of hackers and conspirators who allegedly stole from phone companies around the world. The illegal profits funded terrorist activities, Italian officials alleged.

A federal grand jury in New Jersey indicted three people Friday, including one man who has been linked to al Qaeda. The three suspects, who live in the Philippines, are accused of providing Pakistani nationals in Italy with access to stolen phone lines.

The same company that was used to pay the three hackers also financed the communications of terrorists in last year’s Mumbai attacks, in which a small group killed more than 170 people, people familiar with the matter alleged.

Meanwhile, Italian officials arrested five Pakistani nationals Friday in an early-morning raid on 10 call centers suspected of involvement in the alleged scheme. Among those arrested were a husband-and-wife team who managed call centers in Brescia, Italy — Mohammad Zamir, 40 years old, and Shabina Kanwal, 38.

Read Full Article

2 Japanese Carrying $134 Billion In U.S. Bonds Detained In Italy

Update: June 17th: Suitcase With $134 Billion Puts Dollar on Edge: Bloomberg

Update June 16th: We’ve updated this story $134 Billion U.S. Bond Mystery Continues In Italy

Update: Italy’s financial police said they asked the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to authenticate $134 billion worth of undeclared U.S. government bonds found in the false bottom of a suitcase carried by two Japanese travelers attempting to cross into Switzerland. A determination is expected within a few days.

Original Post

According to Japan Today, two Japanese nationals were detained by Italian financial police last week after trying to enter Switzerland with $134 billion worth of undeclared U.S. bonds, mostly Treasury bonds, an Italian daily said Wednesday. The Japanese consulate general in Milan confirmed that the detention had taken place and said it was trying to confirm with Italian authorities whether the two were indeed Japanese nationals and their identities.

According to the report in il Giornale, two unidentified Japanese in their 50s concealed the bonds, including 249 U.S. Treasury bonds each worth $500 million, in a suitcase with a false bottom that was searched by the Italian authorities June 3 when they were in Chiasso, at the border with Switzerland, about 50 kilometers north of Milan. The daily did not say on what charges they have been detained, but the two may have been detained on suspicion of attempting to take a large amount of securities out of Italy without declaring it because the paper said they had not declared the bonds.

The treasure was in the hands of two Japanese from Italy were trying to enter Switzerland. In a suitcase were 249 bonds of the ‘Federal Reserve‘ American in the nominal value of 500 million each, and 10 ‘ bond Kennedy ‘ of the nominal value of $ 1 billion each, in addition to whta is described as very original banking documentation.

Everything has been reported to have been seized and authorities are investigating the 2 as well as the authenticity of the bonds.

Very little new information has been released since we first broke this story yesterday. We’ll continue to monitor it and bring you the latest updates.

Source  – Japan Today

Guardia di Finanza – (Italian)

Shock Admission: Italy Made Deal With Terrorists

This is similar to providing room and board to the guy you find breaking into your home.

——

In an astonishing admission, the former president of Italy has confirmed his country provided Palestinian terror groups with sanctuary and the ability to establish internal bases in a secret pact in which the terrorists pledged not to target Italian interests.

“I always knew, though not by official documents and information kept from me, about the existence of an agreement based on ‘don’t harm me and I won’t harm you’ between the Italian Republic and organizations such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the PLO,” Former Italian President Francesco Cossiga revealed in a letter to the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.

Cossiga was responding to an interview the newspaper conducted last week with Bassam Abu Sharif, a top Popular Front for the Liberation, or PFLP, leader who claimed Italy provided his group in the 1970s with safe haven in a non-aggression pact.

“The terms of the agreement were that the Palestinian organizations could even maintain armed bases of operation in the country, and they had freedom of entry and exit without being subject to normal police controls, because they were ‘handled’ by the secret services,” Cossiga wrote.