I know, it’s the Daily Mail. They claim “intelligence sources” think this mysterious huge fortune in cash is Saddam’s, or was, but I don’t see any reasoning or evidence for it.
Also, is it common for sums of cash in the tens of billions to be shipped around the world with no stated recipient?
I won’t read a Mail article, but from your title, I would point out it would scarcely be in tradition for the Russian authorities not to transfer large sums either abandoned or with the legal owner dead or in the Gulag into safe-keeping for it’s own good.
C.F. Spanish Gold.
Misdirected funds from the Iraq Occupation?
I am pretty certain that other than a couple of suitcases of currency here and there, most huge monetary transactions are done electronically.
I could see the value of keeping a suitcase, briefcase or backpack of cash in the closet for that on the run part, cash in hand as bribery can work wonders [or at least it does in fiction, I have never been bribed in real life] but money in bulk is voluminous and heavy. Have you not seen the pictures of how much money fits on a pallet?
