So lets say your walking along (real life) and you see a briefcase. No one is around to see you. Curiosity gets the better of you and you open it. Its full of a lot of cash. Lets say 500K for sake of argument. There is no indication anywhere about who it belongs to or where it came from.
What do you do?
Get to a safe location (where I'm unlikely to be mugged/robbed) and call the police. No way this won't have been reported.
Take it to the police. Quite apart from that being the law (in Australia, anyhow) there's a lot of risk involved in keeping it. The kinds of people who keep 500k in briefcases are not the kinds of people I want turning up to ask for it back once I've spent it.
Oh come on. Briefcases full of cash aren't just for gangsters anymore!
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Call up my dealer, conclude transaction, head over to Backpage.
Gangsters gonna get me, I'm going out happy.
Go to the closest police station and report it missing.
Did that once with a wallet I stumbled upon and they called me to inform the owner -a tourist from Holland- had been found within a few hours.
Otoh, if I were married to Kelly Macdonald, I'd leave well enough alone.
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Beware the Dutch Mafia...Go to the closest police station and report it missing.
Did that once with a wallet I stumbled upon and they called me to inform the owner -a tourist from Holland- had been found within a few hours.
Yeah. I keep hearing clogs, but no one's there when I turn back.
It's amazing how stealthy they can be considering they are wearing shoes made from solid wood.
Beware the Dutch Mafia...Go to the closest police station and report it missing.
Did that once with a wallet I stumbled upon and they called me to inform the owner -a tourist from Holland- had been found within a few hours.
Yeah. I keep hearing clogs, but no one's there when I turn back.
It's amazing how stealthy they can be considering they are wearing shoes made from solid wood.
Dey got cement clogs. An it's easy to make somebody sleep wit' da fish if the whole country is below sea level.
Are you f+++ing INSANE? I'd leave it right where it was!
Beware the Dutch Mafia...Go to the closest police station and report it missing.
Did that once with a wallet I stumbled upon and they called me to inform the owner -a tourist from Holland- had been found within a few hours.
Yeah. I keep hearing clogs, but no one's there when I turn back.
It's amazing how stealthy they can be considering they are wearing shoes made from solid wood.
Dey got cement clogs. An it's easy to make somebody sleep wit' da fish if the whole country is below sea level.
Signore, if I may advice'a, it would'a be better'a if you didn't mention the matter with the Dutch.
Huzzah!
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Turn it into the cops and wait 30 days. The drug dealer or lobbyist who owns it is NOT going to claim it, and after that its mine legally. Becomes much easier to spend and make interest that way.
The park where I used to work did have the occasional brown paper bag full of cash drop off. One employee found about ten grand and turned it in, but since he was on the job the state kept it.
May not be an optimal solution to write your name on the receipt tag, though. And if you don't want to go through the police, your best bet is taking it indoors quickly, putting it in a backpack or something, then go to the bank and put it in a safety deposit box. If nobody has f~+*ed you up for over three years or so, get back to it. Check that the money isn't DNA-painted somehow (you have a while to learn how), and the serial numbers aren't consecutive, then spend a little at a time, in different areas. It won't change your life, but it may be a nice bonus. However, if you find a briefcase somewhere, DON'T OPEN IT ALREADY!
I like the turning it into the police idea.
Are there witnesses?
Are there witnesses?
Read the first post.
I'd take some and leave the rest. Seriously. Like skim 10% and run off.
Call the hostage's loved one and tell then they left the briefcase in the wrong spot; then rough up the hostage a bit to teach them a lesson.
Hide it some place else. Wait for a long time to see if anyone else comes looking for it. If it seems dangerous to keep it, abandon it some place much like you found it.
If you do keep it, you have to either launder the money or spend it in small ways that the IRS can't track.
There could be non-murder related reasons for a briefcase full of cash. There are still some people who prefer to keep their savings in physical money despite the financial disadvantages, and you might end with a lot of cash if you go to a cash-only gold merchant to sell, say, your grandmother's coin collection.
Also, around here there used to be this custom in the 70's and 80's specifically in the construction business where workers would usually request their pay in cash rather than with checks, which meant hauling very large sums of money to the construction sites.
Or it could be money that was stolen from someone and put into a briefcase.
Still, I would be tempted to pick it up, turn to a nearby person and say in a smoker's voice "Did you bring the merchandise?" while slightly opening the briefcase.
Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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STRAIGHT TO THE BLOW DEALER AND THEN THE STRIP CLUB, B#!+@ES!!!
Seriously, if that wasn't your answer, you don't deserve a briefcase full of cash, or even your current savings account. Send me a wire and I will stimulate the economy on your behalf.
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Gradually, over the next few years, all my debts would go away. Also, the pretax contributions to my retirement savings would increase by a few percentage points.
As LazerX points out, the type of people walking around with a briefcase full of cash are not the most likely people to report its loss to the police.
Under no circumstances would I tell my wife. She would have it spent in a matter of months.
Take it to the nearest store where I can buy a replacement bag or box. Go to the bathroom. Quickly flip through as much of the cash as dare while transferring it to the new vessel. Look for any kind of tracking device. Dump the suitcase in the ceiling tiles of the bathroom, or failing that, the dumpster out back. Leave through the shipping entrance.
After that, I'd have to think about it.
... oh right, school loans, duh.
The bomb comment has given me pause, but if I'd never head that I would definitely open it, and I would definitely take it to the police. My fear of whoever might be missing that case is greater than my greed.
If I ended up being able to keep it, I would purchase:
1. A command center
2. Playsets of EVERYTHING in MtG (and set some aside for future purchases of the game)
3. Lots of RPG books
4. Save the rest for rent and food.
All the good answers are taken, but my thinking:
Nobody handles that kind of cash except criminals trying to stay off the grid. Therefore if I just walk off with it, they may come for me. I call the cops and babysit the case until they arrive, doing my best not to disturb the scene. I wait my 30 days. The crooks are not coming for it. If it's a legit pile of cash by some extremely unlikely quirk of fate, I don't want to be the thief who stole 500k and appears on someone's cellphone or security camera.
So I have 500k. I would:
1) Pay the taxes on it.
2) Take my mother back to Europe. If it happened in the next few months, we'd definitely visit my friend working in Trieste.
3) Go to Hawaii and see my friend there.
4) Invest a chunk of it in my mother's embryonic business.
5) I'd go to Gencon and Paizocon. Probably just one time each, but I'd go.
6) New computer.
7) Make a few low-risk investments.
8) Bleed the rest slowly off over years.
I'd squirrel it away somewhere. If no one publicly reported it missing, it would go toward making the lives of friends and family (and myself) a little bit easier... paying off debts, getting postponed medical treatments, starting college funds for my nephews.
All the good answers are taken, but my thinking:
Stuff
Embryonic business? Doing what exactly?
** spoiler omitted **All the good answers are taken, but my thinking:
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** spoiler omitted **** spoiler omitted **All the good answers are taken, but my thinking:
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Ahh. It sounded like she was selling other peoples embryos. Or chicken eggs or something.
Go to the closest police station and report it missing.I like this idea. Only problem is what if they ask you to prove that it is yours, or how you got it.
Well, it's not mine. That's why I'm reporting it.
Ohh, wait. I think I understand; I meant taking the briefcase to the police and report what I found, rather than pre-emptively report it missing in order to claim ownership.
** spoiler omitted **** spoiler omitted **All the good answers are taken, but my thinking:
Stuff
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All I gotta say is: all my kids get to go to college, not just the motivated middle one who's going to get a scholarship.
