Slashdot Mirror
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.
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
This is a bathroom bill I could get behind.
...turds?
For all intensive porpoises your a bunch of rediculous loosers
Well now we know what rich people wipe their asses with.
Looks like the food in the UBS company cafeterias is too rich.
For god's sake man, this is Slashdot.
"Each individual bill is worth nearly 0.149111 bitcoin."
We often see $100 bills used in our store.
My personal observation is that the people using them are always old, as in clearly past retirement age. I have no clue why this is the case.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
That greatly depends on the country. In Switzerland, 500 EUR banknotes are common, though not as much as 500 CHF banknotes (you can use those to pay for your morning bread). UBS has ATMs for different denominations in many agencies and airports. Here, for instance, the leftmost ATM only gives out 100 EUR banknotes.
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.
There never was a "10'000 CHF" bill. 1'000 CHF is the largest one. Check here: https://www.snb.ch/en/iabout/c...
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
> 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.
EUR bills are made of plastic. When it burns, it gives a nasty smell and black smoke. It also shrivels and doesn't fully turn into ash, rather sticks to the underlying surface.
What should have been done was cut them into very, VERY small pieces using a document destroyer.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
Small correction: CHF 500 banknotes do not exist. There are CHF 100, 200 and 1000 notes. 100s are very common, 200s not so much and 1000s quite common in certain transactions (e.g. when you buy a used car from a private person, or older people doing cash only and who get their full salary or pension in cash from their bank account at the beginning of the month).
I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous.
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.
When it's spent on a great deal of bureaucratic waste, any currency would lose its value. However, when literally flushed down a toilet, since there is less of that currency in circulation, it should theoretically gain value
Sylvester Stallone - Cliffhanger
"it costs a fortune to heat this place"
Feeding $100 notes into a fire to keep warm
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.
You mean like 'supply & demand' laws? They apply to currencies as well!