Chinese officials are among the richest in their country, and obtain the majority of their money by illegitimate means. With billions of yuan in cash, they must find obscure places to store their money and have invented creative ways to do so.
According to media reports, when Chinese official Wei Bei was arrested, police officers brought 16 cash counting machines to count all of the cash in his house. Of these machines, four of them overheated and broke due to the sheer amount of cash that was being counted.
You would think that with all this money, Chinese officials could be living worry-free lives and be able to boast extravagant lifestyles. On the contrary, officials are afraid to spend the money, because it is mostly stolen so they fear it'll draw attention.
With their various ways of hiding cash, they are constantly worried that their money will be stolen or someone will happen to find it. Every time one official’s stolen cash is found, other officials can only await their fate and hope to not have to face wrath of the anti-corruption agency.
Below are the top eight unconventional ways officials have hidden their cash:
1. Wrapping 20 million yuan in grease-proofed paper and sinking it to the bottom of a fish pond
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2. Buying a house to store over one billion yuan
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3. Burying money wrapped in plastic in piles of ashes
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4. Hiding hundreds of thousands of yuan in rice fields
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5. Custom-making gas tanks to put large sums of money in
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6. Wrapping 4 million yuan in plastic and hiding it in a hollow tree
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7. Stashing cash under roof tiles
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8. Burying money in a pit
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*Images of “Chinese yuan,“ ”fish pond,“ ”Chinese house,“ ”ash pile,“ ”rice field, gas tank,“ ”tree with hollow,“ ”roof with broken tiles,“ and ”man digging pit“ via Shutterstock
