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Spanish police arrest ex-fraud chief after €20M found in walls of his house

theguardian.com

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Re: Spanish police arrest ex-fraud chief after €20M found in walls of his house

#21

Post by daveguy »

CommanderData wrote: post #17
ryandrake wrote: post #15

How does one even expect to use €20M of physical paper cash? You're going to get scrutiny from the government and/or financial institutions if you try to deposit it into a bank. I guess you'd "launder" it somehow, but does that even work anymore? Major purchases with cash put a giant government bullseye on your back these days. That is if you could actually make those purchases. I'd imagine most major purchases that…

The best person to ask would be the an good fraud chief. Maybe not this one though.

And a good fraud chief probably isn't going to tell you what they're looking for. :)

Re: Spanish police arrest ex-fraud chief after €20M found in walls of his house

#22

Post by mattmanser »

pavlov wrote: post #14
metadat wrote: post #11

I'd forgotten Europe has €500 notes, whereas in the US everyone now gets to deal with $100 bill spam. Few people bother to pickup loose change anymore. What's the long-term plan here? Perhaps it's to add maximum physical friction to moving larger amounts of fiat than you can spend in a single visit to Costco on a food run for your family of of 4. :)

The 500 euro bill hasn’t been produced since 2019. Apparently 25% of them were in circulation in Spain, despite the Spanish economy being only a fraction of the eurozone.

In the UK they heavily discourage even the £50 note (roughly €60/$63). We basically only use 5/10/20.

Most shops won't take them and cash machines don't give them out.

Which is pretty odd now given how high inflation got here for the last few years.

Here's an article from 5 years ago saying that £50 notes were widely regarded as just used by criminals.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-48993008

Re: Spanish police arrest ex-fraud chief after €20M found in walls of his house

#24

Post by yieldcrv »

ryandrake wrote: post #15

How does one even expect to use €20M of physical paper cash? You're going to get scrutiny from the government and/or financial institutions if you try to deposit it into a bank. I guess you'd "launder" it somehow, but does that even work anymore? Major purchases with cash put a giant government bullseye on your back these days. That is if you could actually make those purchases. I'd imagine most major purchases that…

Very easy to launder 20M

Be a promotor or promotion company, sell VIP tables at big event or music festival for 20,000 euro each, 9 out of 10 clients don’t show up (because they don’t exist and you made them up)

Do it all summer, our economy is big enough to support this

Your money is now clean from selling VIP tables

Deposit cash, pay taxes, move on

Re: Spanish police arrest ex-fraud chief after €20M found in walls of his house

#25

Post by CalRobert »

metadat wrote: post #11

I'd forgotten Europe has €500 notes, whereas in the US everyone now gets to deal with $100 bill spam. Few people bother to pickup loose change anymore. What's the long-term plan here? Perhaps it's to add maximum physical friction to moving larger amounts of fiat than you can spend in a single visit to Costco on a food run for your family of of 4. :)

I don't like it, but I think the long term plan is to eliminate paper money, and with it privacy.

I live in the Netherlands and you can really live 100% cash-free here. A lot of places are card-only, even.

Re: Spanish police arrest ex-fraud chief after €20M found in walls of his house

#26

Post by HnUser12 »

ryandrake wrote: post #15

How does one even expect to use €20M of physical paper cash? You're going to get scrutiny from the government and/or financial institutions if you try to deposit it into a bank. I guess you'd "launder" it somehow, but does that even work anymore? Major purchases with cash put a giant government bullseye on your back these days. That is if you could actually make those purchases. I'd imagine most major purchases that…

I'd assume the same way they collected that much cash. Illegal deals. You want to bribe someone? use cash. Buy something of high value, put low value on the books but pay the rest in tax free cash? This is pure guess work

Re: Spanish police arrest ex-fraud chief after €20M found in walls of his house

#27

Post by thenthenthen »

ryandrake wrote: post #15

How does one even expect to use €20M of physical paper cash? You're going to get scrutiny from the government and/or financial institutions if you try to deposit it into a bank. I guess you'd "launder" it somehow, but does that even work anymore? Major purchases with cash put a giant government bullseye on your back these days. That is if you could actually make those purchases. I'd imagine most major purchases that…

Wall insulation?

Re: Spanish police arrest ex-fraud chief after €20M found in walls of his house

#28

Post by Waterluvian »

ryandrake wrote: post #15

How does one even expect to use €20M of physical paper cash? You're going to get scrutiny from the government and/or financial institutions if you try to deposit it into a bank. I guess you'd "launder" it somehow, but does that even work anymore? Major purchases with cash put a giant government bullseye on your back these days. That is if you could actually make those purchases. I'd imagine most major purchases that…

Isn’t that why it ends up in a wall?

Re: Spanish police arrest ex-fraud chief after €20M found in walls of his house

#29

Post by sschueller »

metadat wrote: post #11

I'd forgotten Europe has €500 notes, whereas in the US everyone now gets to deal with $100 bill spam. Few people bother to pickup loose change anymore. What's the long-term plan here? Perhaps it's to add maximum physical friction to moving larger amounts of fiat than you can spend in a single visit to Costco on a food run for your family of of 4. :)

Switzerland has 1000 Franc notes which is around 1140 USD. The central bank just decided that the next series will also include the 1k note although the EU doesn't want it (not that they really have a say) and some others are opposed to it as well.

CHF 1000 is worth less than it ever was so the whole claim about it being used for crime is bullshit. People keep cash at home and safety deposit boxes. When we had negative interest rates it made sense to keep some money in cash.

A bigger debate that is coming is the elimination of the 5 rappen coin. The 1 rappen coin was killed a long time ago and the golden colored 5 may soon also go.

Re: Spanish police arrest ex-fraud chief after €20M found in walls of his house

#30

Post by netcan »

ryandrake wrote: post #15

How does one even expect to use €20M of physical paper cash? You're going to get scrutiny from the government and/or financial institutions if you try to deposit it into a bank. I guess you'd "launder" it somehow, but does that even work anymore? Major purchases with cash put a giant government bullseye on your back these days. That is if you could actually make those purchases. I'd imagine most major purchases that…

Become a high class escort, where legal. Very high class. Accept only cash.
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