100 dollar bills that were blown up, or buried under heaps of rubbish, or hidden in an old discarded wardrobe. For days, multiple versions of a tesoro hidden shake the people of The couplesin the center of Argentina.
There is talk of more than 75,000 dollars found in a dump in the open, when an employee working on the site with a bulldozer unexpectedly tripped over the piece of furniture where they had been hidden.
Federico Baez, one of the neighbors who found some of the loot last week, thinks there must still be more money buried. But in recent days the authorities have closed access to the dump.
“A colleague got out of the truck and saw a 100-dollar bill on the floor, all ironed. It caught our attention because it was impeccable. We will have put together 10,000 dollars between the six of us. Then another boy came and found 25,000, he was luckier. I think there must be much more buried,” Báez told AFP.
In The couples it is said that the money must have belonged to an old woman who died recently, leaving no children. They suppose in the town that he had hidden it in the false bottom of a closet, that it went to the dump after the new inhabitants of the house got rid of the old piece of furniture.
Inflation in Argentina
In Argentinasubjected to high inflation for decades, it is common for people to save in dollars and store them in cash in their own homes, due to the mistrust that banks generate in them.
Horacio Compagnucci, mayor of the town, refers to the episode as the “green madness”.
“I am convinced that all this green madness occurs because what is found are dollar bills. In a context in which the country is not having a good time economically, the word dollar is on everyone’s lips” he told AFP.
Since 2019 it governs in Argentina exchange control, which has become increasingly restrictive. Currently, the maximum amount authorized to acquire foreign currency for hoarding purposes is 200 dollars per month.
The unusual find of The couples It also served to make memes, among these one in which President Alberto Fernández and Vice President Cristina Kirchner are seen digging in the dump.
AFP