Half a Ton
You just stole ten million dollars. The hard part starts now.
Hide it, or spend it?
HIDE won. The majority wrote Part 2.
What happened
Ten million dollars sits on a motel bed in four duffel bags. In hundreds it weighs about 100 kilos. In twenties, half a ton.
Some of the bills are bait money: their serial numbers are on file, and spending one in the wrong place gets it flagged. So, rule one: never spend it near where you took it.
Day two, you walk into a bank. Any cash deposit over $10,000 gets reported to the federal government, automatically. So you deposit $9,000 a day at a different bank each time. That pattern has a name: structuring. It's a crime on its own.
Day three. $9,964,000 you can't touch. Hide it, or spend it?
The evidence
The story is fiction. These rules are real.
Cash is heavy
A US banknote weighs about one gram. $10 million in $100 bills is 100,000 notes, about 100 kg. In $20s it's 500,000 notes, about half a ton.
The $10,000 report
Banks file a Currency Transaction Report for cash transactions over $10,000. It happens automatically, every time.
Source: 31 CFR § 1010.311 · Read: The $10,000 cash rule
Structuring
Splitting deposits to stay under the reporting line is a federal crime by itself, even if the money is clean.
Source: 31 U.S.C. § 5324 · Read: Structuring