This Is What Happens When a Billionaire Tries to Get on a Plane With $1 Million Cash in His Luggage
For us, the everyday travelers sitting in economy class, checking luggage can be a somewhat nerve-wracking experience. Will our bag split open, revealing an embarrassing heap of rumpled lingerie? And forget allowing a baggage handler near your jewelry or iPad: we tend to safeguard our valuables in our carry-on luggage.
Well, meet Christo Wiese. The 70-year-old is South Africa’s third richest person, worth $3.1 billion thanks to his shares in the African continent’s biggest retailer, low-price supermarket chain Shoprite.
Wiese’s travel woes couldn’t be further from the quotidian vanishing iPod. He’s facing a legal fight to recover over $1 million confiscated by customs officers because he was traveling with that huge sum in cold, hard cash bundled up in rubber bands in his luggage.