Massive moral / criminal dilemma – what would you have done?

EyepodI

EyepodI

EyepodI

Associate
Joined
8 Oct 2011
Posts
513
Location
Surrey
My first job after leaving college was working for a prestigious investment bank , many years ago now. I originally worked in bank reconciliations which checked in all the cash in / stocks out on various trading accounts. Part of my job was to daily receive in numerous cheques from other counterparties, log their values and then give them to the various settlement departments. Some were often for huge amounts of money, the biggest I recall seeing was £58m from Natwest in settlement of a Gilts account.

One particular morning one of the messengers delivered me my handful of cheques for the morning as usual. I go through them only to discover in among the cheques he has mistakenly given me a bearer bond. I think it was valued around £2.5m pounds (strangely I cannot recall the exact amount now).

I had a little knowledge of bearer bonds and knew they were supposed to be as good as cash to the holder of the bond. I am holding the bond in my hand.

A bearer bond is a debt security issued by a business entity, such as a corporation, or by a government. It differs from the more common types of investment securities in that it is unregistered – no records are kept of the owner, or the transactions involving ownership. Whoever physically holds the paper on which the bond is issued owns the instrument. This is useful for investors who wish to retain anonymity. Recovery of the value of a bearer bond in the event of its loss, theft, or destruction is usually impossible.
Click to expand...

So here I am sitting at my desk with basically a £2.5m note. I could just walk out the door a rich man, but would I be caught, have I got the guts to pull this off?

I sit there in silence for some time weighing up my options. Do I walk out the door, fly off to Switzerland (this was my plan to cash it) or do the “right” thing and return it to the department that I knew to be the correct recipient?

Basically it was a pretty unpleasant situation to be put in. I could see the manager of the Gilts department across the floor from me acting very nervously which I assumed was because they were missing their bearer-bond.

In the end, after about an hour of holding on to it I walked over to the manager of the Gilts desk and handed it over whilst appearing to be unaware what I had in my hand. He seemed very relieved and nothing more was said about it.

So basically I wimped out because I feared if I tried to pull it off I would eventually get caught and banged up.

Occasionally I wonder to myself if I would have gotten away with it.

What do you think? Banged up in jail for a long time or sunning myself in some Caribbean country? What would you have done?

[TLDR] - could have nicked £2.5m and gotten away with it but wimped out and didn't do it. What would you do have done? Would I have been caught??
 
At that age I was a lot bolshier than now, and I didn't have kids.

I would probably have taken it.
 
If I had known what it was at the time and some of the comments above then Im with Gilly on this one, woulda probably taken it and then left it safe for a while before cashing.
 
I was only 19 or 20 at the time. Not exactly a man of the world but the temptation was massive. I would be more inclined now that I am older.
 
Tough call. I'm not sure I would have, mainly due to any potential link back. I know there is no traceability on the bond, but perhaps the person who accidently gave it to you etc. Would have weighed all that up.
 
Yes they would have tracked you down, but you could have had a lots of fun in the time it took. You did the right thing though, I imagine the prison term would have been quite long.
 
I'm not sure i could have really enjoyed it with the thought hanging over my head that at any time some police might turn up and put me in prison for god knows how long.
 
[FnG]magnolia;24334984 said:
For partial context, aren't you an Accountant?
Click to expand...
No, I'm a member of the 'umble working clarse, earning below average wages. However I was brought up with a working moral compass. :-)
 
There's a very high chance that they would have found a way to trace that back to you, so you did the right thing in returning it.
 
it is unregistered – no records are kept of the owner, or the transactions involving ownership.
Click to expand...
Sounds a lot like cash but I'd expect you would still be asked to prove where it came from before you were allowed to cash it out and if you got caught with it in your bags or whatever at an airport you would likely be in serious trouble.
dogs can sniff out large wads of cash I've seen it happen on "nothing to declare" where people have had 10k+ on them , maybe they are trained to sniff out shares and bonds to? assuming bonds etc are printed on a specific type of paper like money is.
Maybe if you were already wealthy no one would bat an eyelid at you getting 2.5million but if your poor there's no way they won't want to know where it came from and for you to prove it belongs to you


Although if you had kept it for some years until everyone had forgotten about it maybe you would have had a chance
 
Last edited:
If that situation presented itself to me now I'd take it. Would take me a while to mull it over in my head, but I know I'd take it. It's just too much of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity I couldn't let it slip.

I'd have cashed it in at an anonymous account and then carried on working there for a good few months to avoid any suspicion.
 
Whilst I'd love the idea of acquiring £2.5 million, I don't think I'd have the balls to walk out with it. If I had nothing to lose, then yes - in an instant.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom