22 Billion Dollars found: Photos of a Mexican drug lord’s home after being raided

originally posted by: Flyingclaydisk
a reply to: YouSir

The "problem" with having that much cash is, it's very difficult to do anything with it.

Sure you can buy houses and luxury items, but to make any big investments like what you're talking about would require that money to be in a bank somewhere, or in the form of some kind of regulated security. I think even Elon Musk might raise an eyebrow or three if an investor said he wanted to invest a billion or so...and then whistled to a U-haul truck to start backing into the loading dock to start unloading the tons of cash money. Well, maybe not, but you get the point.

As hard as it is to believe, having that much cash almost becomes a burden. It's not very mobile, and it takes an army to move it around. Plus, if it gets very far out of your circle of control, theft becomes an increasing problem.

Ummm...trust me...they would be targeted investments...as in payloads for the "Big effing rocket"...

No need to reinvent the wheel when there are proven platforms to rent...Large 3d robotic mobile printers to print the infrastructure out of the regolith...Just set up base where there are known water reserves...and mine helium 3...

Then move on from there to robotic asteroid capture and mining...ion drive and mylar solar sails and other methods to change orbit...slow...and park small mineral rich asteroids/comets...

The future for raw materials is in space...we just have to get there...and there are proven platforms like the SpaceEx heavy and soon the Big Effing Rocket...

It's time to move out up the gravity well...





YouSir

a reply to: 727Sky

Bloody el.

That's all i can say... after viewing that site!

There you go, money to build the wall. Mexico can put their people to work building it immediately using drug money derived from sales in the USA. They probably will need to build that wall to keep Americans from coming in and taking the money from the other drug lords homes there.

a reply to: 727Sky

I challenge the governments of the world to run a more profitable marihuana business than this guy.

Just think of the revenue that could flow into your budgets and not into some Mexican villas basement. LoL

thats alot of cash

This makes me depressed.

Imagine if you took the profit out of it..hmm, how you gonna do that?

originally posted by: starviego

originally posted by: 727Sky
The 22 billion was just in one room...

Doing some quick calculations of the main pile-- 12 rows deep, 30 across, and about 3' high, with a max 3000 bills per 12" stack, assuming all $100 bills,--you'd have about $324 Million there. Still impressive, but not exactly 22 Billion.

It was 22 billion .....
but after tax (read "as much as we could divert to ourselves")

the loot has shrunk somewhat !

War On Drugs + Open Border Policy = this sort of BS. This is a perfect example of the evil that is the Two Party + MSM + IC System. They'd rather screw US, have all that money go out like this, and have everyone getting locked up for dirt weed.

If I had that much money I'd be able save the world for sure.

a reply to: 727Sky

CIA amigo got busted???

Is that supposed to happen?

Dude obviously crapped in someone's Corn Flakes.

After it was counted it turned out to be a little more than 22 Billion Dollars

But before it was counted there was more than 23 Billion Dollars

a reply to: glend

I and others call BS on 22 billion, I don't know if anyone has any idea how much physical space 22 billion in cash would take up.

a reply to: vonclod

a reply to: IgnoranceIsntBlisss

Thanks for the graphic, so it would take 220 pallets, all in $100s

The problem is tye laws which carve out illicit markets. Drag it all into the sunlight by making it legitimate. Taxes flow and cash isnt hoarded out of circulation. Those 2 wins alone make it worthwhile

originally posted by: vonclod
a reply to: glend

I and others call BS on 22 billion, I don't know if anyone has any idea how much physical space 22 billion in cash would take up.

You're right. Last night I was thinking about how much 22billion would look like and i thought it would look a lot more than what was in that photo.

I first read about this case back in 2007, not long after the raid occurred. So yeah, while it's fairly old news it's still worthy of discussion IMO, as it helps to illustrate what's at stake in the dark world of big drug deals. Easy to imagine why so many people get killed in rival drug-lord wars in that part of the world (and elsewhere).

The actual "official" tally for all the USD found there was $205.6 million, so I can only guess the $22 billion figure was just someone hyping it up on their website somewhere to get more page reads. It would follow that others picked up on it and it has been doing the rounds with that absurd number since then -- more than a decade after the original reports (which gave the more accurate figure).

Down to facts: the images of the money, guns etc were from a raid done on a home in Mexico City in March, 2007. The owner, Chinese-Mexican businessman Zhenli Ye Gon, had managed to flee but seven or so of his underlings got arrested. Then in July 2007 Zhenli was arrested in the US and held in prison for years while his lawyers fought his extradition to Mexico.

The money was related to deals for pseudoephedrine. Zhenli Ye Gon was the director of Unimed Pharm Chem -- a HK-based chemical co that produced it -- and he then "allegedly" (cough-cough) supplied it to others who made the meth.

You can read most of the details in this report on the Reuter's news site, and here's a web-archived statement by the Mexican Ambassador to the US from March, 2007 that confirms the basic facts. (I tried live linking but it wouldn't load correctly, so here's a screenshot. Just right-click and "view image" to see the screenshot full size.)


Here's the actual link, "broken" so it'll display. Just remove the space in both the "htt ps" and the "ht tp" after copying and pasting in a new browser window and it should work. I tried it and had no issues:
htt ps://web.archive.org/web/20070609032530/ht tp://mexico.usembassy.gov/mexico/ep070320seizure.html

The Ambassador's statement also includes a link to their "Procuraduria General De La Republica" site which has more details (note: in Spanish) plus some of the images of the piles of cash. Again, it won't load correctly here but it's accessible.

Here's the "broken" link:
htt ps://web.archive.org/web/20070605002335/ht tp://www.pgr.gob.mx:80/cmsocial/bol07/mar/b11007.htm

Same procedure: copy and paste, then take out the spaces I've put in the https and http parts. I've also tested it and it works.

a reply to: JustMike

Thank you for clearing a few things up and taking the time to post

a reply to: JustMike

Interesting to be sure!

a reply to: IgnoranceIsntBlisss

And just think...

Multiply your picture 4x and you get ONE Zumwalt class destroyer! Just ONE!