>>212132103
I think the point of bearer bonds was that the bond issuer is/was supposed to pay the monetary amount, to whomever showed up with the bonds.
The “terrorists” showing up themselves, might be problematic, but a middleman could show up, and make a legitimate claim to the bond issuer, and the bond issuer would be legally obligated to hand over the cash.
I presume in most instances, the bonds would be transferred thru multiple parties before anyone tried to make a claim.
The more parties the bonds travel thru, the murkier ownership rights become.
The other side to this, is that any corporation with hundreds of millions of dollars in bearer bonds in a safe, likely has the resources to monitor the bond markets, and find out if any supposedly destroyed bearer bonds have turned up, and then potentially backtrack were the bonds came from.
Intelligence agencies almost certainly had and still have people monitoring bonds and other securities, and keep track of serial numbers were possible, to monitor illicit transactions.
