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?

Bury it, and paper money soaks up water and rots. A storage unit wants your ID. A safe deposit box logs and films every visit.

Rule two: never keep it all in one place. Bag one goes in the ground. Bag two goes in a storage unit, a year paid up front in cash. Bag three goes to the one hiding place with no paper trail: your cousin Dre.

Meanwhile the analyst runs your name and finds the storage lease. Suspicion jumps to 52%.

3:12am. A text from Dre: "I saw what's in the bag. I need fifty K." Pay him, or move the bag tonight?

Dre had fifty grand and forty-eight hours: a gold chain, new rims, bottle service, all cash. Any business that takes more than $10,000 in cash reports the buyer by name. Dre's name went in twice.

The analyst noticed a man who never had more than $400 spend $50,000 in two days. He looked at Dre's family, and one name was already on his board. Yours.

Then you broke rule two: you took bag three back and buried it with bag one. Six and a half million dollars, one hole.

2am, in the woods. Dre followed you. "Fifty was the inch, cuz. I want half." What you can't see: someone followed Dre.