Want fiction? Go to real life.

I am not sure of the credibility to assign to the source. So take this as hearsay.

When it [the $134.5bn smuggling operation by two Japanese] first broke out (by Bloomberg), only conspiracy theorists, it seemed, had attached more than casual attention.

It turns out that there might be a few interesting things.

First, the Japanese were actually Filipinos carrying genuine [Japanese] diplomatic passports.

Furthermore, the Treasury Certificates had accompanying documents, signed and witnessed by the likes of Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke with federal reserve logos and stamps embossed. Well, if it is a forgery, it\'s got to look more genuine than the real one. :)

The following is an image of one of the accompanying documents. (I am not sure if the way I embed an image in the post is appropriate. I would appreciate it if somebody could tell me how to do it, in case the image does not appear properly. Thanks.)

Apart from the instinctive questions from people (such as: why and how the people carrying forgeries got IMMEDIATELY release?), there could be even simpler and more direct suspicions. Imaging (especially if you have been to European countries) that you are traveling through Europe, or Italy if you would like to be more specific, with drawings of the Certificates done by your six-year old nephew. Do you think the Italian polizia would even show any interest? What about artfully forged ones? Or even some real Certificates? It is more than possible that they would not even know what they are seeing. What difference does it make if you just laid them on the top of the pile of clothes in the suitcase, in contrast to putting them in the false bottom? Doesn\'t it sound more like that the Italians were on the lookout for them than it being an accidental encounter? Or the Japanese were trying to attract attention by delibrately having false bottoms?

Anyway, with the roller coaster of the Dow shooting up and down nanometers these days, pondering about this matter may be less boring.