Dirty money: who flushed €90,000 down the loo in Geneva?

Swiss prosecutors are investigating why someone tried to flush tens of thousands of euros down toilets around Geneva, including the loo that serves a UBS bank vault.

The money - around €90,000 (£80,000), says ABC News - is thought to have been cut up with scissors. The first batch was discovered in May, in a toilet near a safe-deposit room at a branch of UBS in the financial district, according to a report in Tribune de Geneve newspaper that was confirmed by the city prosecutor’s office.

Days later, cash was discovered clogging the toilets and pipes at three nearby restaurants, Bloomberg says.

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The bills, which are legal currency, were in denominations of €500 (£444). The European Central Bank said last year that it intended to take €500 notes out of circulation, because of their links to illicit activities including money laundering.

Investigators reportedly told Tribune de Geneve that they suspect the money may have belonged “to Spanish women who placed it in a safe-deposit box several years ago”.

But Vincent Derouand, from the Geneva Prosecutor’s Office, said that throwing money away was not a crime, reports Sky News, and that the investigators are “not so interested in the motive”, but “want to be sure of the origin of the money”.

UBS declined to comment, Bloomberg says.