WASTE PAPER: Someone Keeps Flushing €500 Bank Notes Down The Toilet.

In recent weeks, Swiss prosecutors have been gripped by a mystery, trying to figure out why someone tried to flush tens of thousands of euros down the toilet at a Geneva branch of UBS.

And not just once.

The first €500 bills were discovered several months ago in a bathroom close to a bank vault containing hundreds of safe deposit boxes, according to a report in Tribune de Geneve confirmed by the city prosecutor’s office. A few days later, Bloomberg adds that more banknotes turned up in toilets at three nearby restaurants, requiring thousands of francs in plumbing repairs to unclog the pipes. Indeed, AP adds that at one pizzeria, police were informed after the clogged toilet had overflowed.

In all, police have extracted tens of thousands of euros in soiled bills, many of which appear to have been cut with scissors.

While destroying banknotes isn’t a crime in Switzerland, “there must be something behind this story,” said Henri Della Casa, a spokesman for the Geneva Prosecutor’s Office. “That’s why we started an investigation.” He declined to discuss the case further.

If the money had been stolen and been marked by police or had the serial numbers recorded, then there wouldn’t be any mystery for the police to solve — but apart from that, I can’t imagine any reason for flushing away perfectly good money.