Saturday. November 26/2016

The Cypriot paper reports that a man was arrested at Paphos airport trying to leave the country with €102,000, mostly in 500 and 50 euro notes. Raises a number of questions. Of course one is periodically reminded that it is illegal to cross borders with large amounts of undeclared cash, typically €10,000, but it's not a problem that has inconvenienced us much. First question is why was it all in his hand luggage? Admittedly rather a large stash, but one would have thought that it could have been spread about a bit. Jacket pockets, etc. Or maybe that would have made no difference. It just seems that most of the scanning techs I've watched looked unlikely to be saying to themselves wait, small wad in upper jacket pocket, similar in lower right, lower left, inside - what must these add up to? And what about the contents of trouser pockets? Don't they just pick up metal when you walk through the detector? Have I ever left an accidental £5 note in my jeans? Well possibly, but four bulging pockets would be likely to attract some attention that a single note wouldn't. 

Then there's the question of the denominations - mostly 500's and 50's. A hundred thousand in 500's is 200 notes. Not slim, but manageable. As opposed to 2000 €50 notes, another matter altogether. Which suggests deficient planning. But how easy is it to walk into a bank and ask to change a thousand notes into larger denominations? My limited experience in asking HSBC to change the £10 and £20 notes from the cash point into £50's to make a wallet sized lot isn't much help. And even then, one bank asked if I had a bank card, though they didn't say they would have refused if I hadn't. Certainly a bizarre request for a major transaction would be embarrassing and probably futile. So several requests for smaller amounts at a series of banks, requiring repeated nerving of oneself. The trade itself not illegal. But what about the origins of the money? Perhaps the most embarrassing consideration. Which leads to the guess that the police were already suspicious of this young man and the unaccustomed vigilance at Paphos security was not accidental.