Some people say that money is the root of all evil, but few of us would deny that having money makes life easier. However, getting money involves moving it from where it was to where you are now. This happens millions of times a day around the world with small, barely noteworthy amounts of cash. But sometimes someone needs to move a lot of money, and the logistics behind it, whether legal or not, can be quite impressive.
10. Criminals used Deep Fake technology to transfer $35 million electronically
Technology and finance are inextricably linked, and as one changes, the other changes too. Just think, people once used cowrie shells as currency, and today you can get rich by holding a lot of cryptocurrency that doesn’t physically exist. It’s amazing. But with advances in technology comes advances in stealing that money, which is exactly what happened when some clever bank robbers pulled off $35 million electronic heist in 2021, mostly with the help of special effects.
The money was stolen from a bank in the United Arab Emirates, and all this was done without the thieves even leaving their homes. They used AI voice simulator , to create a Deep Fake of a business executive. They called the bank, as the man and the bank manager, recognizing the voice of their client, went ahead and processed the transaction, which transferred $35 million.
It was later determined that the scammers were a team of at least 17 people and managed to reroute the cash to several accounts around the world.
9. Hackers stole $620 million from NFT-based gaming company
As big as the cryptocurrency market is, the cryptocurrency heist market, if you can call it that, is also impressively huge. In 2022 alone, it was stolen near $3 Billion in Cryptocurrency . Part of the stolen cryptocurrency will be returned : The FBI recovered more than $3 billion from the 2016 heist and another $3 billion from an earlier heist. But some of it will likely be gone forever.
In March 2023, hackers managed to pull off a spectacular theft cryptocurrencies worth 620 million dollars , sending an engineer a simple email. They lured an engineer from the NFT-based game Axie Infinity with a fake job offer. After establishing a rapport, they sent him an “official” offer. This email was loaded with spyware, which they then used to commit a robbery and make off with the cash.
The hackers were based in North Korea , which is becoming a hub for crypto scams as it now appears to be a reliable source of income for the country.
8. In 2016, the UAE imported $15 billion worth of gold from Africa, and the figures are questionable.
Not every wealth transfer is an outright heist, but it can still be a little shady and eyebrow-raising. For example, the United Arab Emirates, famously a wealthy nation, managed to import a staggering $1 billion worth of gold from Africa in 2016. amount in 15 billion dollars. That alone is impressive, because that's just a lot of gold. But perhaps a little more remarkable is the fact that the amount of gold the UAE reported importing was significantly different from the amount of gold that African countries reported exporting.
So what does it mean when someone imports more gold than they export? Well, it could have been a very serious clerical error, or some small variables in taxation and shipping costs, but the more likely scenario seems to be some kind of illegal movement of the metal. Taxes are usually due on shipments of raw ore, so if you claim to export much less than you actually do, you are paying much less in taxes overall. This means that when a country like Mali, publishes significantly fewer exports , than registered UAE imports from the same country, something is wrong.
There is a significant black market for African gold, much of which relies on dangerous and unfair labour practices, including child labour.
7. Smugglers take tons of silver out of China every year
Gold is far from the only precious metal that moves around in large quantities in illicit and suspicious ways. Silver has been a big part of China for years, and at one point you could count on around 500 tons of silver being smuggled through Hong Kong in a given year.
Officials have had little luck when it comes to stopping smuggling, with one truck containing approximately 1.1 tons of silver worth about $500,000, but it is impossible to catch every truck.
The problem is that this is an established industry for smugglers. In 2007 Officials uncover smuggling ring worth 220 million dollars , which has already transported 456 tons of goods. Of course, the New York Times has an article about smuggled Chinese silver sold on the world market back in 1935 Almost a century later, we can only guess how much silver was smuggled out.
6. Officials in Mexico City have seized more than $200 million in drug money.
Making $207 million a day is not something most people or companies ever do, but the Mexico City Police Department managed to do it back in 2007. drug elsewhere.
Through detective work, they traced the drugs to an incredibly wealthy area where many diplomats from other countries lived. At the target home, they found equipment to manufacture large quantities of the drug, as well as $205.6 million in $100 bills stored in cabinets, lockers and suitcases. The cash weighed about 4500 pounds . Besides, it was largest cash seizure during the drug bust in history.
5. The November 2023 Powerball lottery was the largest lottery with a single winner.
Sure, you can steal the money, and most of us just work for the money, but wouldn't it be better to just win it? Just try your luck and get rich out of nowhere? That seems like the easiest option, and it happened in November 2023 like never before, when one person managed to win the world's biggest Powerball jackpot.
Jackpots have exceeded $1 billion in the past, but the largest to date is $2.04 billion . The winning ticket was sold in California, and overnight the winner became one of the richest people in the state. Although not as rich as it looks, since the IRS will receive 24% before the winner even gets a whiff of it. But if they live in California, where winnings are tax-free, that $2.04 billion turns into $997.6 million , which is still a tidy sum that can be earned with literally no effort.
4. Chinese smuggling network moved $10 billion through fake bank transfers.
Taking cash out of China is generally not allowed in large quantities, and the government tries to keep track of the money its citizens have and what they do with it. Under normal circumstances, you can't move more than $50,000 a year. This has made cash smuggling a problem for Chinese authorities, and they sometimes crack down on large gangs of smugglers who can move staggering amounts.
In 2011, a cash smuggling gang was caught transporting 10 billion dollars in currency between 2007 and 2011. They essentially operated like a traditional bank, only underground and able to transfer money out of the country.
In total 18 people were convicted for their involvement, which included creating fake accounts and even fake businesses to explain why money was being moved and where.
3. Largest crypto transfer ever moved over $1 billion worth of bitcoins
We've seen what happens when cryptocurrency is moved in unscrupulous ways, but what about legitimate (or seemingly legitimate) transactions? Many people have made a lot of money in the crypto world, and they move their money around, too, sometimes in dramatic ways. The world's largest cryptocurrency transfer took place back in 2020 when was moved what constituted at that time 1 billion dollars in bitcoins .
The owner of the wallet, which had not been touched for about five years, was anonymous. It was possible it was hacked, although unlikely, and it was thought the money may have come from Silk Road, a criminal den that was shut down back in 2013.
At the exchange rate at the end of 2023, the wallet contained significantly more than $1 billion, but in reality it was worth about 2.8 billion dollars .
2. The US government sent $12 billion in cash to Iraq and lost it
These days, no matter what side of the political spectrum you are on, you probably think that the US involvement in Iraq has been, to put it mildly, something of a fiasco. The country was invaded back in 2003, and then there were attempts to rebuild it, and things fell apart badly. Money was sent with very little oversight or direction, so 12 billion dollars disappeared completely.
Just hearing this, you might think that this was a series of wire transfers, or inflated billing by contractors, or some sort of culmination of months or years of financial mismanagement. It wasn't. The U.S. literally wrapped stacks of $100 bills in plastic, put them on planes, and sent this huge pile of money to Iraq. By most accounts, it sounds like the money was then handed out like Johnny Appleseed, scattering his seeds across the ground with very little, if any, oversight.
Literally tons of cash were shipped in on a regular basis, the largest of which at one time exceeded $2 billion. In total was sent 363 tons (400 tons) of cash. The money was handed out in duffel bags or from the back of a pickup truck. Hundreds of thousands were stolen, the cash was kept in bags, and the keys to the vaults were in backpacks. At one point, $500 million was given to a contractor for no reason — it was listed as “TBD.” Thousands of nonexistent employees were also on the payroll.
Eventually, a small portion of the money left a paper trail and was lost forever.
1. The largest transfer of wealth in history was Operation Fish.
As for monumental remittances, the truly greatest movement of wealth in history occurred during World War II. Canada became an unlikely center of European wealth and a potential hub for England’s continued survival. With German troops storming the continent, Winston Churchill wanted to hedge his bets in case the worst happened and England fell. The solution was Operation Fish.
Britain secretly increased gold reserves in Canada since 1938 , and as the war progressed these efforts intensified. The plan was to essentially move the seat of English power to Ottawa, Canada, if it came to that, and to rule the Commonwealth from the other side of the ocean.
One ship at a time, HMS Emerald, carried £230 million in gold and securities. In 2022, that would be £15.2 billion, or about $18.6 billion. Just on one ship.
In 1940 the total amount of money transfers in both gold and securities was estimated at approximately £1.72 billion sterling . Adjusted for inflation, that's £113.8 billion, or about $140 billion. It was undoubtedly the largest transfer of wealth in history.
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