Buried Loot a Mystery for authorities

[jtyangel]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080728/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/buried_millions

WASHINGTON - The businessman arrived at the Treasury Department carrying a suitcase stuffed with about $5.2 million. The bills were decomposing, nearly unrecognizable, and he asked to swap them for a cashier's check. He said the money came from Mexico.
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Money like this normally arrives in an armored truck or insured shipping container after a bank burns or a vault floods. It doesn't just show up at the visitor's entrance on a Tuesday morning. But the banking habits of Franz Felhaber had stopped making sense to the government long ago.

For the past few years, authorities say, he and his family have popped in and out of U.S. banks, looking to change about $20 million in buried treasure for clean cash.

The money is always the same — decaying $100 bills from the 1970s and 1980s.

It's the story that keeps changing:

_It was an inheritance.

_Somebody dug up a tree and there it was.

_It was found in a suitcase buried in an alfalfa field.

_A relative found a treasure map.

No matter where it came from or who found it, that buried treasure stands to make someone rich.

It could also send someone to jail.

Interesting piece. I'd guess it's drug money too judging by the time frame they suspect it is was from and buried(70's-80's) but I have a feeling whoever is the 'owner' of the money now actually found it and knows they have no way to explain it except the obvious and perhaps is still wary that the drug ring who owns it may have memory all of a sudden.

 Lot's of dead drug dealers--I'm sure this money belonged to one of them. All of the dealing for cold hard cash and it sat decaying in the desert, just like the drug dealers body, no doubt, who put it there to begin with.

Neat read, just the same.

[asdf2231]

Felhaber said he didn't want to do anything illegal and was merely getting a cut of whatever he exchanged.

He now says he was mistaken in his interviews with investigators.

"I told them, 'I suspect this is where it's from but I didn't know,'" he said. "They take you to your word like you're supposed to remember every single thing every single time."

Yeah people investigating potential crimes in the MILLIONS range tend to get a little funny like that... 

[jtyangel]

Felhaber said he didn't want to do anything illegal and was merely getting a cut of whatever he exchanged.

He now says he was mistaken in his interviews with investigators.

"I told them, 'I suspect this is where it's from but I didn't know,'" he said. "They take you to your word like you're supposed to remember every single thing every single time."

Yeah people investigating potential crimes in the MILLIONS range tend to get a little funny like that... 

yes, and isn't that Felhaber character perfect for doing this sort of thing...he's a middle man for imports. Sure he didn't learn and money laundering tricks along the way. 

I still think someone in Mexico found it, but geez, it's more then obvious Felhaber and the couple accepting the wires are hiding the who and how.

[Peter3_1]

In the time period in question there was a guy running a cocaine  smuggling outfit out of central Penna.. He hired laid off airline pilots, and paid them $500,000 per trip. AFTER they completed the second trip, they were paid for the first, etc,. paid in hundreds in airtight aluminum suitcases. They used Cessna 310's stripped , added fuel capacity and carried a metric tonne or two of refined cocaine.

Eventually, the lot were caught and jailed. I think the "mastermind" is in for life, and two the pilots rolled over on him when caught returning. They pilots were on a radio show one early morning, when I was in the garage rebulding  the engine of my Formula Ford, talking about everything that went on.

Their bottom line advice was if you're going to smuggle cocaine, when the busts come doiwn, be among the very FIRST caught, that way you can roll over on someone else and get minimal jail time with your "deal" with the authorities.


My best guess is that this money is somehow related to that operartion. Either the guy's a minor participant, or wound up with a home that a pilot had and stumbled across the stach while the pilot was in the slam.

[jtyangel]

In the time period in question there was a guy running a cocaine  smuggling outfit out of central Penna.. He hired laid off airline pilots, and paid them $500,000 per trip. AFTER they completed the second trip, they were paid for the first, etc,. paid in hundreds in airtight aluminum suitcases. They used Cessna 310's stripped , added fuel capacity and carried a metric tonne or two of refined cocaine.

Eventually, the lot were caught and jailed. I think the "mastermind" is in for life, and two the pilots rolled over on him when caught returning. They pilots were on a radio show one early morning, when I was in the garage rebulding  the engine of my Formula Ford, talking about everything that went on.

Their bottom line advice was if you're going to smuggle cocaine, when the busts come doiwn, be among the very FIRST caught, that way you can roll over on someone else and get minimal jail time with your "deal" with the authorities.


My best guess is that this money is somehow related to that operartion. Either the guy's a minor participant, or wound up with a home that a pilot had and stumbled across the stach while the pilot was in the slam.

Interesting. I figured someone here would have some background info that could be potentially relevant. Thanks for sharing that P3. I figured on something similar, but don't know enough about what went on during that time to even speculate as to potential specifics. Wild stuff!

[DumbAss Tanker]

In the time period in question there was a guy running a cocaine  smuggling outfit out of central Penna.. He hired laid off airline pilots, and paid them $500,000 per trip. AFTER they completed the second trip, they were paid for the first, etc,. paid in hundreds in airtight aluminum suitcases. They used Cessna 310's stripped , added fuel capacity and carried a metric tonne or two of refined cocaine.

Eventually, the lot were caught and jailed. I think the "mastermind" is in for life, and two the pilots rolled over on him when caught returning. They pilots were on a radio show one early morning, when I was in the garage rebulding  the engine of my Formula Ford, talking about everything that went on.

Their bottom line advice was if you're going to smuggle cocaine, when the busts come doiwn, be among the very FIRST caught, that way you can roll over on someone else and get minimal jail time with your "deal" with the authorities.


My best guess is that this money is somehow related to that operartion. Either the guy's a minor participant, or wound up with a home that a pilot had and stumbled across the stach while the pilot was in the slam.

One of many such operations, including some similar deals that have murky associations with a certain former Arkansas governor...

[jinxmchue]

One of many such operations, including some similar deals that have murky associations with a certain former Arkansas governor...

Why, whoever could you mean?   

[DumbAss Tanker]

One of many such operations, including some similar deals that have murky associations with a certain former Arkansas governor...

Why, whoever could you mean?   

The name eludes me at the moment, but I do recall it being all over the news for some unrelated reason recently...

[bijou]

I don't know why he came up with all those lame ass stories. The truth is that it was lost down the back of the Guinness World Record winning sofa and has only just come to light.