Indiana man gets jailed for submitting bail money that smelled like marijuana.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050407/ap_on_fe_st/bad_bond_1

Are you training your tellers to report these kind of activities? Money smelling like gas (cross border cash transfer using a compartment of a gas tank) or perfume (Meth labs do this to cover the smell)?

I heard you can buy scratch and sniffs for marijuana.

About a year ago a teller in my town reported money that smelled like marijuana being deposited by two women in their 60's. Turns out there were two prominent farming families that decided to start growing weed to supplement the downturn in the farming economy. They are all now in jail thanks to an alert teller.

One of the few SARs I actually got a response to involved funny smelling money. Customer was arrested, and the agents sent a nice thank you for our help.

I filed a CTR (back in the days before SAR) on a guy with pink hair who used to drive up to my drivethrough in his corvette with 7 to 9M in 20's daily. He had a fit when he had to provide the info (he knew about structuring). I did it because the money stunk so badly of marijuana I hated dealing with it

He's probably not able to dye his hair pink anymore since he's in jail And I've saved countless tellers the difficulty of counting out smelly twenties in that window Kind of like superman..but with a sensative nose

For those tellers that recognized the marijuana smell, did you run drug tests on them?

Good grief......I think it's absolutely beyond stupid that we be responsible for smelling money and filing SARS based on the smell!!

What's next....a federal requirement to employe drug sniffing dogs in banks? Hey, with some of the recent requirements I wouldn't be surprised.

I did think for a fleeting moment that some little beagles with uniforms with the bank logo could be kind of cute!

Back in the day, when I was on the front line, a very good customer came to make their mortgage payment. While I was looking up his account number and filling out the ticket, he was reaching in his front pocket to pull out what I assumed was cash for the payment.

Low and behold when I looked on the counter where he had placed the supposed cash, there was a nice big zip lock bag full of marijuana. I was nice and explained that we would gladly accept cash, check, or money order but we couldn't accept "that" as payment! Needless to say, he was extremely embarrassed (and he was over the age of 60 at the time). I don't recall seeing him very much after that.

I recall someone telling me about a bank that jumped to conclusions after one of their customer appeared nervous while making a large cash deposit. The money was brought to the bank in a brown paper bag and was covered in a mysterious white powder. Thinking that this was certainly "drug money" the branch manager called the police who showed up with their drug sniffing dog. To make a long story a little bit shorter - the money was legitimate and the white powder was powdered sugar from the brown paper bag that had at one time contained donuts.

I guess my first question to everyone would be: How do you know it smells like Marijuana?

I can remember reading something about a court case where the prosecution wanted to present the "tainted" money found on a suspect that had traces of drugs on it as evidence. The defense attorney presented another "expert witness" that proved that everyday money supposedly not involved in drug trafficking also tested as positive for traces of drug on it! Go figure, money doesn't even have to smell to be tainted.

Have you ever been to a concert?

On a serious note, it might be prudent to be extra careful in the handling of currency from a drug bust. One of my clients reported that two employees got very sick from counting the money the feds bought in. Some of the bills were permeated with cocaine residue and the employees absorbed it through their skin. (They got sick, not stoned.)

Reminds me of my days of counting cash in Miami in the late 80's !!
We had to shake the money to get the white powder off!!

Some years ago there was a report that in some areas just about any bill could be tested and found positive for cocaine residue.

kaybee,
For a fleeting moment there you were a sick puppy?

Every now and then I need to have a fun thought. And I like beagles.

The trainee dogs at airports wear little capes that say trainee. I was thinking something along those lines, like this!