You find a suitcase with £1 million in it. What would you do

You find a suitcase with £1 million in it. What would you do

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SimonV8ster

12,543 posts

227 months

Saturday 17th January 2015
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I've often wondered about safety deposite boxes - sad eh ?

If you get one the bank must know whats going in it to a point ? Can't be totally secret or you could put some TNT and a timer in there. So they would have to know you're putting a st load of cash in there to store ?

That in turn would raise eyebrows, no ?


bazza white

3,551 posts

127 months

Saturday 17th January 2015
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Give it a year and say I found half in my dustbin. No one should be able to lay claim so you claim it back. If someone does and they are more cunning and come up with a way to prove you still have 500k in cash.

Take 30k or so cash out the bank to buy a car, you tell them why. You buy a car then go back to bank with cash and say you didn't buy it they see you recently withdrew 30k cash so no problems putting it back in.

Cash for everything else or spend on credit card online and pay off with cash over the counter up to say a grand each month.



Long and slow is the key.

rxtx

6,016 posts

209 months

Saturday 17th January 2015
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rossybee said:
Why Dundee?
For cake.

ManFromDelmonte

2,742 posts

179 months

Saturday 17th January 2015
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bazza white said:
Take 30k or so cash out the bank to buy a car, you tell them why. You buy a car then go back to bank with cash and say you didn't buy it they see you recently withdrew 30k cash so no problems putting it back in.
Erm, this may be a stupid question, but why not just buy the car with the 30k cash?

rossybee

931 posts

256 months

Saturday 17th January 2015
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rxtx said:
rossybee said:
Why Dundee?
For cake.
No need to come all the way up here for it hahaha

Adam B

27,142 posts

253 months

Saturday 17th January 2015
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Steviesam said:
I hate to make this simple, but 4 times in 3 years I have bought cars for approx £23k in cash from private sellers and when the time came, I sold them privately and 3 of the 4 buyers paid me in cash. Went into my current account, no questions asked (only questions I was asked was when withdrawing it-they wanted to know what it was for).

So, you could buy used cars privately, being careful when viewing to choose the sellers bearing this in mind. (I know some will not accept cash, but that could be established during the chat while looking-walk away if a no go)

Lots of people saying similar things, so you are regularly paying £20k cash sums from your sales, flags to HRMC, how do you explain to them how you had the money to buy all these cars?

Banks flag £10k+ or any regular cash sums less than this.

I do wonder whether HMRC have the resources to investigate all but if you start banking £20k every couple of months they might take the trouble

Adam B

27,142 posts

253 months

Saturday 17th January 2015
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woody2846 said:
Im sure SWMBO could spend a £1 million fairly easily in a short space of time.
I don't think I would hand it into the Police-
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2487553/Ho...
That is pretty shocking, I think the assumption would be a million in a case would be dodgy money, especially if no one claims it, so it would go straight into the government coffers.

Thereby dissuading anyone doing the honest thing - any large sum will be sorted, legal or illegal, so bizarre logic IMHO

How often are bank notes changed in the UK such that previous design ceases to be accepted (except at banks)?

Edited by Adam B on Saturday 17th January 19:11

Steve7777

235 posts

148 months

Saturday 17th January 2015
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1. Buy a selection of used super cars and classics, for cash, from private sellers
2. Set up a super car rental/experience business. Basically just set up a website and do some minimal online marketing. Buy an ad on here perhaps
3. For every legitimate customer who pays £500-£1,000 to rent one of your cars put 50 through the books as cash rentals with made-up names

Obviously to look like a legitimate business you'll need to put a lot of miles on these cars yourself, and get a lot of receipts for tyres, brakes etc. so you'll need to spend a lot of time at track days and driving all over Europe. Shame.

nyxster

1,452 posts

170 months

Saturday 17th January 2015
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exceed said:
What utter tool would hand this into the police!?

It's a difficult one but I'm sure you could find a guy to help you legitimise your funds for a £100k fee?
Yes, i believe they call them HMRC.

anonymous-user

53 months

Saturday 17th January 2015
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buy bitcoins then sell them, lose 100k and all clean, just say you had a few thousand in earlier days, can't see it being traceable, but might take time buying them.

Edited by The Spruce goose on Saturday 17th January 19:27

boobles

15,241 posts

214 months

Saturday 17th January 2015
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rossybee said:
toastybase said:
Take it, drive up to dundee for a couple of weeks
Why Dundee?
One million would buy Dundee wouldn't it?

CedGTV

2,538 posts

253 months

Saturday 17th January 2015
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Shallow Grave .....

Ring any bells ?

renorti

727 posts

195 months

Saturday 17th January 2015
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that amount, keep it.no doubt.

Talksteer

4,843 posts

232 months

Saturday 17th January 2015
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If you hand £1 million in to the police they will consider it to be a proceed of (someone else's) crime if it is not claimed and you will not see it again.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2487553/Bu...

Fundamental issue with getting rid of £1 million is that you will at some point have to explain where you got all that cash from. Hence plans involving handing it off to other people just mean the now have to explain where they got it from.

Taking it to the Casino is a bad idea, Casino's are not anonymous and cash flows are tracked for the purposes of spotting laundering and also "advantage players". Also winning repeatedly at gambling is suspicious unless you are an excellent poker player and even then you would still have to account for and declare your "winnings".

Options: (I assume you have ten years to clear the money before the notes go out of tender)

Chattels - You could probably buy around £50k of household "stuff" without it looking too crazy and without needing to show receipts.

The idea of buying some land or an house in bad condition and then paying builders cash in hand to fix it isn't a bad idea, you could probably get away with spending £50k per year on it and claim that you did the work yourself at nights and on weekends (best go on some courses so that's credible). You would need to find a low profile place to do this because otherwise it would be obvious you had contractors in. So I assume around £500k burnt off this way, assuming you sell the house once complete and begin another "rebuilding".

You could also make some risky investments with your legit money knowing that if they fail you are safe financially, any money you make is obviously legit.

Big issues would be other people.

WAG's (or HABF's) are going to notice something is up if you buy everything in cash and are doing up large houses. Obviously if they are up for it then you have twice the money burning resources.....

If you buy a small business for laundering purposes you are going to need to run those businesses directly to be able to funnel money through them without the staff there being wise to what you are doing also it would be worth reading up on forensic accounting techniques first!

You could of course blow a lot of the money on "cash services" but again those are likely to lead to you having other trouble with WAG's, plus if every week you spent £1000 on getting a fitter woman than you've ever pulled to do things that you've never managed to convince any real women to do is unlikely to lead to long term happiness......

I think best options is to bury it for a few months and then use it as pocket money for a few years and not worry about spending it all.




rossybee

931 posts

256 months

Saturday 17th January 2015
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boobles said:
rossybee said:
toastybase said:
Take it, drive up to dundee for a couple of weeks
Why Dundee?
One million would buy Dundee wouldn't it?
The lesser football club? Quite possibly.

toastybase

2,220 posts

207 months

Sunday 18th January 2015
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rossybee said:
boobles said:
rossybee said:
toastybase said:
Take it, drive up to dundee for a couple of weeks
Why Dundee?
One million would buy Dundee wouldn't it?
The lesser football club? Quite possibly.
Just pop the case in the boot, drive up to Dundee and live in a premier inn for a bit, keep your head down.


SimonV8ster

12,543 posts

227 months

Sunday 18th January 2015
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But don't book in advance for the Premier Inn as you'll get it for 19 pounds a night and it'll take forever to spend the cash.....

rossybee

931 posts

256 months

Sunday 18th January 2015
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toastybase said:
rossybee said:
boobles said:
rossybee said:
toastybase said:
Take it, drive up to dundee for a couple of weeks
Why Dundee?
One million would buy Dundee wouldn't it?
The lesser football club? Quite possibly.
Just pop the case in the boot, drive up to Dundee and live in a premier inn for a bit, keep your head down.
...or the Travelodge on Strathmore Avenue, mix it with the swingers...

duffy78

470 posts

138 months

Monday 19th January 2015
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I'd invent a new client for my company and create a dummy invoice once a month for x number of years. There'd be a bit of wastage on corp tax and the VAT man would get his hands on a slice but at least then it's in the banking system and legit.

hairyben

8,516 posts

182 months

Monday 19th January 2015
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MaxFromage said:
IF HMRC were as efficient as some people are suggesting, the country would be a very different place to live. There would be a lot more tax being paid... They can take up to 2 months to open their post!

As an accountant, I can see how easy it would be to launder the money via various cash businesses. If the businesses were short term, it unfortunately wouldn't get anywhere near HMRCs radar. For every one they catch, there are plenty going unnoticed. £1m would be a tiny drop in the ocean.
Don't underestimate their tenacity and reach once they get a sniff of what looks like someone trying to diddle them on a scale.

JVaughan said:
Kiddies softplay center. Lease a large warehouse, lease the equipment.
These places rake in the cash .. for a £100,000 startup, you can pull £300,000 - £400,000 a year. Add meals and drinks and kiddies rides into that equation and you could launder the lot within 3 years and pay the lease costs on the equipment so you owned it outright, and pay staff and have an audit trail for HMRC.

eg. most places charge between £3 and £5 for 90 minutes per child for play. (the wetter and colder the weather,m the more these places become magnets for families and childminders looking to let little johnny play).
lets say the average family goes there, 2 kids and has a meal / snack.. your looking at £20.
now add the possibility of there being over 300 kids there over a 10 hour period ..

Even accounting for quiet times, if your open for 365 days, then your looking to profit to the tune of about £3 million.... By making up attendees and injecting the "found cash" in at quiet times, your far more likely to make it transparent to HMRC .. plus you have a successful buisness, your own equipment and £1million laundered and payed back to yourself as dividends / salary
This is one of the best ideas, any business that banks reasonably large amounts of cash that you can bolster but small enough to manage by yourself avoiding involving anyone else who's in on the scam, there's a reason that clubs, car dealers etc have the image they do. Best plan would probably be to start or buy an existing biz via large mortgage and feed the money in over a few years, then cash in the now very successful biz and retire on your legitimate cash.