Unusual cash deposits: Company toilets clogged by $100K
When this business said somebody was flushing money down the toilet, it wasn’t speaking metaphorically about a failed company initiative.
Somebody had literally blocked up the toilets in Switzerland’s UBS bank in Geneva’s financial district with cold, hard cash. Then, a few days after the bank reported the clogged toilets, three nearby restaurants found their own facilities backed up with 500-euro notes, according to Geneva’s Tribune de Geneve newspaper.
Five-hundred euro notes had been discontinued by the European Central Bank last year because of concerns it was being used too often for illicit activities like money laundering.
In all, the toilets of the bank and three nearby bistros were blocked by nearly $100,000 in high-denomination euro banknotes, according to Geneva prosecutors.
Legal to throw away money
Investigators wound up confiscating the toilet-clogging cash during the investigation and are looking into the situation although, at this time, not for criminal purposes. Spokesman Vincent Derouand clarified that throwing away the money wasn’t a crime. So why are they investigating? Derouand said:
“We are not so interested in the motive but we want to be sure of the origin of the money.”
The money was confiscated and, as of right now, investigators aren’t treating the cash as illegal funds.
Derouand said there’s no immediate reason to believe the cash was dirty money which, given where the money was discovered, can’t possibly be taken as a literal statement.