BANKNOTES FOUND CLOGGING TOILETS IN GENEVA

Talk about money down the drain.

Swiss prosecutors are trying to figure out why someone apparently attempted to flush tens of thousands of euros down the toilet at a Geneva branch of UBS Group AG.

The first 500-euro ($597) bills were discovered several months ago in a bathroom close to a bank vault containing hundreds of safe deposit boxes, according to a report in Tribune de Geneve confirmed by the city prosecutor's office. A few days later, more banknotes turned up in toilets at three nearby restaurants, requiring thousands of francs in plumbing repairs to unclog the pipes.

In all, police have extracted tens of thousands of euros in soiled bills, many of which appear to have been cut with scissors.

While destroying banknotes isn’t a crime in Switzerland, "there must be something behind this story," said Henri Della Casa, a spokesman for the Geneva Prosecutor's Office. "That's why we started an investigation."

He declined to discuss the case further. UBS also declined to comment on the incident at its branch on the Rue de la Corraterie in downtown Geneva.

To read the complete article, see:
Geneva Police Confiscate Euro Bills Clogging Up Toilets (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-18/geneva-police-confiscate-euro-bills-clogging-up-toilets)

The public prosecutor's office in Geneva said that the money appeared to have been disposed of by two Spanish citizens, whom it declined to identify, and that unless there was evidence that the cash had been obtained illegally or was destined for criminal activity, no charges could be brought.

“The fact that you put the money into toilets is weird, but not criminal," said Vincent Derouand, a spokesman for the public prosecutor's office.

“The only thing you have to check is if it's of legal provenance or not," he said, adding that investigators had yet to find evidence of links to criminality.

According to investigators, the money was found in four locations in May and June: in a toilet at the Rue de la Corraterie branch of the Swiss bank UBS, and in the bathrooms of three restaurants on Place du Molard, a square in the heart of the city's historic center.

The Geneva police said the investigation was focused on damage to the toilets of the restaurants where the money had been found. The prosecutor's office said a lawyer for the two Spanish suspects had paid for damage to the restaurants’ plumbing, but added it could not provide further information because it was a private arrangement.

The lawyer could not immediately be contacted, and the restaurants declined to comment on the damage.

To read the complete article, see:
In Geneva, ‘Dirty Money’ of Another Kind — Flushed Down the Toilet (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/19/business/swiss-money-toilets.html)

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