The Run on Italy's Banks Has Officially Begun

The CEO of UniCredit, Italy's largest bank, says that Cypriot-style "haircuts" on bank deposits are "acceptable". Oh, and that said practice should become a model for salvaging banking executives' seven-figure bonus payments. You know, the same bankers whose investments have literally destroyed the balance sheets of countless financial institutions.

And how have Italians reacted?

Curious why so little has been said about cash flowing out of Italy's banks, especially when even UniCredit's CEO today proudly warned everyone he is all for confiscating uninsured deposits as long as "everyone else is doing it" - and no, he is not kidding, so when it does happen, nobody will be able to say they weren't warned ... Maybe it is because Italian cash is actually not leaving the country at all. Instead, real "wealth" is departing the boot-shaped nation, quietly and under the radar, as fast as it can in another form: gold...

As we can see illustrated in this example of capital flight.

Italian finance police had a lucky find on Easter Sunday during a routine check of a family car crossing into Switzerland: they discovered gold ingots worth about €4.5 million (CHF5.5 million) concealed in false compartments... The car was driven by a 53-year-old Italian resident of the Swiss canton of Ticino, described by the police as the legal representative of a Swiss company.

He was travelling with his wife and three children, apparently going for an Easter trip.

The police decided to examine the car more thoroughly when they saw how nervous the family looked. They found 12 gold bars wrapped up in newspaper hidden under the seats.

The driver “was unable to provide an explanation or to show a legitimate source for this large quantity of precious metal”, the police in Ponte Chiasso said. He and his wife gave “evasive answers”.

The man was immediately charged with money laundering. The ingots and the car were seized. Investigations are continuing into the source and destination of the gold.

There has been an upsurge in the smuggling of gold from Italy to Switzerland in the past few months since the Italian authorities launched a campaign against tax evasion and money laundering.

Truly portable wealth comes in very few forms. Gold has served in that role since the beginning of recorded history. And it has the added benefit of escaping the banksters' clutching fingers, seeing as they're admitting that QE-Infinity has about as much chance of succeeding as Obamacare.

Tyler Durden summarizes with the rhetorical question, "did we mention the confiscated product was gold: not euros, not Cypriot euros, not dollars, not palladium, not bitcoin... gold?"