Now, I know that Japan is still a cash-based nation, and that the Japanese carry more cash on them than your typical American does. But $134 billion? That's more than enough, wouldn't you say?

Two Japanese men in their 50s were picked up in Italy. They had false-bottom briefcases, just like in the movies, and in the hidden compartment were 249 U.S. Treasury bonds worth $500 million a piece. That comes out to $134 billion in bonds.  To give you an idea of how large this undecalred amount really is, it comes out to almost 1/4 of the US debt owned by Japan. That's an assload of Pocky and Ramune!

These two Japanese men were headed to Switzerland before they were picked up by Italian authorities on June 3rd. They've now been detained for some unknown reason. I wonder what they were doing with that much money. Was it fake? If it was real, what the hell were they going to do with that amount? What are they? The senior F4?

Damn. I can't even imagine what I'd do with one of those $500 million bonds.

[via JapanToday]