(Las Parejas) $100 bills floating in the stale air of an open dump sparked a ‘green fever’ in a small town in central Argentina where residents rushed through the rubbish to collect a small fortune which, according to the emerging legend, was hidden in a cupboard thrown in the trash.
Posted at 1:57 p.m.
The frenzy noted last week in the Las Parejas landfill has prompted the authorities to ban its access from now on.
“A friend got out of his truck and saw a clean $100 bill on the ground. It challenged us because it was in immaculate condition”, says Federico Baez, one of the first to have discovered part of this “treasure”.
“We each picked up our share. It was like a game of who would find the most. In all, the six of us raised $10,000,” he told AFP. “The next day a young man was much luckier and found $25,000. I think there must be more” in the landfill, he added.
According to reports reported on social networks, the notes were hidden in the false bottom of a cabinet thrown in the dump after the death of its owner without heirs, and some 75,000 dollars were found.
In Argentina, a country plagued by chronic inflation, bank deposits in Argentine pesos inspire deep suspicion and it is common to hide dollar savings in woolen stockings.
For Mayor Horacio Compagnucci, Las Parejas has been hit by “a green fever”. “While the country is going through a difficult period from an economic point of view”, with inflation of more than 60% over the twelve months until May 2022, “the word ‘dollar’ is on everyone’s lips”, he says at AFP.
The discovery of this cash hoard has spawned numerous memes, including one depicting President Alberto Fernandez and Vice President Cristina Kirchner with their hands in the trash looking for greenbacks to get the country’s economy back on track.