Thanks to the fine folks at Boing Boing for this one. A couple of half-wit Japanese smugglers were cold busted trying to sneak $134.5 BILLION in U.S. treasury bonds into Italy from Switzerland. Yes, you read that number correctly. Apparently ten of them were “Kennedy bonds” worth a cool $1 billion each. Then they had 249 government bonds worth half a billion each.

Right now there’s no word on whether or not the bonds are real or counterfeit, but either way it’s a pretty intriguing story. And get this — if they are real, by law Italy can lay claim to 40 percent of the loot. That means almost $54 billion by my math, although the amount varies depending on which article you read. That much money could reverse Italy’s current deficit, or could rebuild the earthquake-devastated region of Abruzzi five times over.