Police find US$206 MILLION in drug cash in Mexico City household
I just can’t imagine the man that could be part of this investigation, look at that pile of cash which has basically been forfeited to the government, and not help himself to a million or two.
When police do these kinds of raids, what measures do they take (if any) to prevent individual officers from sieving off the stash? What will happen to this money, assuming those arrested are convicted of trafficking?
What makes you think there wasn’t 306 million before the reporter ot there?
At first I thought “$206 million Mexican? Small change.”
But US Money?!
WOW!
But the hypothetical crooked cop would need a pickup truck to haul it away…
Perhaps the IRS would notice if someone’s spending suddenly showed an upturn after such a case.
Crime doesn’t pay because criminals tend not to be capable of delaying gratification. If someone could steal a million from the stash, hide it away in a safety deposit box for ten or fifteen years, and then spend it slowly, they might get away with it. But the temptation towards “easy come, easy go” is hard to resist for those who can’t resist the temptation of “who’s gonna miss a million?” either.
Regards,
Shodan
I’ve never heard of the Mexican dollar, Bosda, nor of a currency where 206 million is small change. Anyway, I suspect the answer to the OP’s question is, “they don’t”. What, you think the smugglers are going to say “No, actually, we made $306 million.”? In the only drug bust I’ve seen firsthand (for simple possession), one of the cops blatantly put about half of the weed in his shirt pocket to smoke later and reported whatever dope was left. The culprit, a player on a Pac-10 football team caught by the campus police, was happy to be officially caught with a lesser bag considering the trouble he was going to be in with his coach.
A guy I used to work with now works with the police doing major drug busts. Apparently the trick amongst Aussie drug dealers is that they keep their cash in the garbage bin outside so that when they are arrested they can claim that they know nothing about it. He was on one raid where they found $3,000,000 shrink-wrapped in the Otto bin. He thinks they should publicise the fact and encourage local hoods to rip off the dealers because if they bring the money indoors they can’t deny knowledge of it.
I’m no Oceanic drug lord, but the garbage bin outside? Yow. Those guys is some pretty trusting drug lords.
But hey, nothing can unite a community quite like the police helping lowlifes piss off violent kingpins, right? 
That, and bragging about how clever you are. One or the other, or a combination of both, is the downfall of most crooks.
Well that is the downfall of most crooks that get caught. Weather or not that is most crooks is somewhat harder to tell.
Exactly. I said to myself, “pfff, they probably really found 406 million.” lol
We covered this in fire academy as well. Fire situations can occasionally uncover significant amounts of valuables during salvage operations.
As one of my instructors put it, he would have to find a way to get away with 1.2 million to cover his expected pay and benefits for the remainder of his expected career which he loves doing. Less than that and hes risking getting fired and unemployable in the feild for little if any net reward.
Cops rarely work alone in this type of scenario. I would not doubt for a second that the occasional bundle of hundreds falls into someones pocket, but cash on this scale takes up some space and no matter how much gear you are wearing its not going to be easy to squirrel away more than 10-15 stacks of $100 bills (250K) without anyone noticing you got pockets full of something. If it was in $20 dollar bills you would be lucky to get $50K.
Well, I don’t know that 206 million in (now replaced by Euro) Italian Lira would have been ‘small change’, but, it wouldn’t have been more than a few years of salary for a professional. One of the sad things about the Euro is being unable to calculate your income/net worth/whatever in Lira. “Hey, I’m a millionaire in Italy!”
[hijack] A buddy of mine was a cop. At a party one time we were talking about his work, he said that he was involved in a bust that confiscated $100,000 dollars of drugs. I said that I had always wondered how the police came up with those valuations. Another guy who was listening, came right back with “Simple, they sell half and multiply by two”. 
[/hijack]
For years I was the bookkeeper for an orginazation (Carnival) and counted and accounted for the income cash. Alone. This amounted for large amounts, 5 - 10 thousand some nights. (Long nights). I tried to tell my boss that it wasn’t wise to let one person by him/herself alone to count money and that at least two people should be present. He never lissened to me.
He was lucky. I was one of the honest ones who never stole from him or anyone else.
After I left I heard he was ripped off for some 80 grand.
He shoulda paid me more.
How could any human resist this? First of all, I’m not sure this won’t wind up in IMHO.
Easy. It’s called " knowing right from wrong " and it’s something we are all exposed to at a tender age. I don’t mean to sound all snooty but come ON. It ISN’T YOUR MONEY. Past that, I don’t see what the quandry is.
I was offered cash to work on a porn movie about 15 years ago. Two days on a weekend of work. I was told to name my price. I said without hesitation, $ 2,000.00 a day cash" and the guy coolly said, " That won’t be a problem. "
I wanted to see what he’d do. I declined the gig.
It’s mob money. I don’t work for mob money but hey, that’s me.
Cartooniverse
You just have to do Vietnamese dongs.
(Yes, the Vietnamese have very small dongs.)
A currency converter gives 1 VND = $0.0000624025, so 206 million of them is a bit under $13K.
That’s an order of magnitude less than the Italian lire, whose exchange rate is still maintained and given as 1 ITL = $0.000687820.
That was why I put this in GQ though - I want to know whose money it is now. (No one has addressed that part of my question - what will happen to this money? The government is basically seizing it, I assume.)
And if the government is seizing it, I can see how some individuals could easily justify helping themselves to their “deserved cut”.
You have my apologies.
One third goes to the Health Secretariat for use in drug treatment programs. I think the rest goes to the drug enforcement agencies. How much of it winds up in private bank accounts, quien sabe?
And if someone offered you a few years of a professional’s salary, you would turn it down?
FWIW, there are standard, widely-acknowledged prices for drugs. While you’re unlikely to find them in Consumer Reports, anyone with their finger on the pulse of any given city’s underground can figure them out pretty easily. While prices vary a little bit at the lowest levels, and can vary greatly from one region to another based on supply and demand (for example, cocaine is easily twice as expensive in Chicago as in Arizona) it’s easy for someone plugged in to the scene to estimate the price of a given amount of a drug they’re familiar with. That said, the cops could make a number up and nobody’s going to correct them.