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Flush With Cash: Swiss Toilets Mysteriously Stuffed With 500-Euro Bills (npr.org)
Someone in the Swiss city of Geneva has been trying to flush tens of thousands of euros down toilets. From a report: The bathrooms at a branch of the UBS bank in Geneva, as well as in three nearby restaurants, had pipes stuffed with 500-euro bills that had apparently been cut up with scissors and flushed down the toilets. The mysterious misplaced funds were first reported by a Swiss newspaper, and local authorities have confirmed the incident to multiple media outlets. Each individual bill is worth nearly $600. Collectively, the destroyed bank notes were worth tens of thousands of dollars. The Geneva Prosecutor's Office tells Bloomberg it has launched an investigation into the bathroom bills. Switzerland is not in the European Union, although it is entirely surrounded by EU member countries, and the nation's currency is the Swiss franc.
And now we know where the money went, coke, ladies of the night and flushed down the toilet. Tell me you didn't suspect it all along.
if it's maybe a failed test run by a currency counterfeiter?
Really?
then chickened out.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
I was wondering what caused a drop in silver spot prices this morning.
Fire.
You're welcome.
The sewer may need upgrades, but this is literally throwing money at the problem.
This is a bathroom bill I could get behind.
...turds?
For all intensive porpoises your a bunch of rediculous loosers
The casino was too far away.
...they spend so much time flushing our money down the toilette, now they just cut out the middleman...?
Here in the US anymore I don't think the average person can even get denominations over $100 (unless they find a collector that happens to have one). They were used mostly for bank/large institution transfers back in the day. The government phased them out claiming a "lack of use" but more likely the disliked the use of the bills ability to be used in anonymous financial transactions.
Or, you know - exactly 500 Euros?
#DeleteChrome
Well now we know what rich people wipe their asses with.
Looks like the food in the UBS company cafeterias is too rich.
WTF is wrong with them?
Would you stick your hand in the toilet for a $500 euro bill slashdot??
High denomination notes are a lot more common in Switzerland - although this is in Euros and not Swiss Francs. I remember taken my then fiance (now wife) to the cinema only to see the guy in front pay for two tickets with a 10,000 Swiss Franc note (then worth around 4,000 pounds). The cashier did not bat an eyelid - she just lent over to her colleague because she was short of a couple of 1,000 SFr notes for the change - and handed back over 9,900 SFr in change.
The Swiss know a LOT of the shit they handle is illegal, fraudulent, tied to warlords, drug lords, slavers, etc. They don't care until they might get caught.
My guess is this Swiss bank had a ton of counterfeit 500 Euro notes and they knew it, and a few key people had been shredding and flushing them for ages.
This wasn't just flushed money- it was cut up first.That's not a normal thing to do.
My first thought? Mental illness. Sounds like some of the stories you hear from that government office that helps you reclaim money destroyed by fire, mold, or a dementia patient who starts shredding money they had hidden in the house.
See also: https://www.frbservices.org/op...
My 2nd guess is counterfeit money.
I wonder if this is a case of an angry employee trying to take it out on the bank?
> It's not like "phasing out" means the same thing as "make possessing a crime".
But if somebody did possess them as part of a crime, what then?
> That doesn't explain why somone who had them would destroy the rathe rather exchange them or juts leve them in the box.
Money laundering investigators are closing in on the perp, and the perp found out.
Exchanging the notes leaves a record of the person being connected to the money which is very bad evidence. The second takes the risk the box will be opened by an investigator.
Think legal jeopardy. If person X, maybe part of a plea deal or whatever said, "yeah I gave 2 million in euro notes to Boris who was going to keep them in his box in UBS", and then, a few days later, Boris is on tape exchanging 2 million in euro notes and depositing it.... or if his box is opened thanks to a search warrant and they find the money----that's conclusive evidence linking Boris as a beneficiary. Now, if some random notes are randomly found in a sewer, the connection to Boris though suspicious is hardly as black-and-white conclusive to a jury or judge as being caught with the money personally.
This is somebody with more fear of prison (or Putin diplomatic "retirement") than greed for the money.
nasty divorce. People do all sorts of strange and illogical things when they're embroiled in a divorce battle, including burning down houses, crushing cars, etc.
Seriously, at least they didn't light them on fire this time.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I just want to know why we in the USA can't have a $500 note. It is not like $100 is worth that much anymore. Yeesh.
You get 500-Euro bills for $20 at Amazon.
The USD is made of rag paper.
The USD won't dissolve in pipes even when shredded, it will also survive survive a number of passes through a clothes washing machine (UK Mangle). The money factory tests this . Does this count as money laundering?
According to the Tribune de GenÃve (local newspaper, in French) the reason for flushing money down the toilet is that some people from Spain had evaded state tax for years hiding money in the UBS bank, and since at the year end tax evasion will be disclosed by Swiss banks to EU countries, these people found nothing better to flush the bills down the toilets of the bank. As the toilets were soon unable to absorb so many bills, the women and one men (as found by cameras) went to nearby restaurants to continue their stupid procedure for destroying embarassing money. The bills have been checked by the police to be genuine.
Same thing is happening with the Venezulean bolívar. Lots of them ending up in the toilets too. Different reason than the Swiss/Euro story though.
And get rid of all this untraceable paper used almost exclusively by criminals ?
We learn from history that we learn nothing from history - Tom Veneziano
to literally flush money down the toilet... nothing wrong with that
In Switzerland I find only 5 CHF coins left on ground as lost coins. What would you expect that such a country would use as toilet paper ?
... all the time. Because the Swiss are using it as toilet paper.
Wife finds out about the other woman and in a fit of anger, goes to his safe deposit and destroys the thing that the husband most loves?
The Swiss must be fighting inflation.
India just did an enormously idiotic thing : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/....
However stupid your country is, you'll always have India to look down upon.
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
I think the subject explains it all.
"Bathroom Bills"?
Swiss toilets are classy!