5
Nugan Hand Will Chop Your Family into Bits
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On paper, the Australian bank Nugan Hand was a high-class establishment. Founded by a lawyer and an American ex-Green Beret with only $1,000 in seed money, they quickly expanded, serving the needs of prominent U.S. military brass, including two generals, an admiral, and a former CIA director. Banking with Nugan Hand was like depositing your paycheck at the Hall of Justice, if the Hall of Justice offered a sweet 16 percent interest rate on deposits and always smelled like vanilla and Febreze.
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Which is unnecessary, since cash smells pretty damn good on its own.
The Evil
Wait, 16 percent interest? Holy crap! Haha, how can they afford that? What are they doing with your money to be able to return that kind of interest? They must be funding friggin' drug runs with your paycheck or ohhhh crap.
That's exactly what they're doing, isn't it?
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In retrospect, bank tellers don't typically ask you to "Show me that paper, son."
Yep. That ludicrously competitive interest rate was largely funded by the massive heroin operation they were running. Mike Hand, the former Green Beret, helped launch Nugan Hand as a cover for the $25 million he received from drug dealers, arms smugglers, and (possibly) the CIA, who may have been using the bank to fund covert operations in Eastern Asia. During their seven years of business, Nugan Hand stole at least $50 million from their investors. And it's not like you could get it back by coming in and berating the teller into refunding your unfair overdraft/embezzlement fees -- their boss once promised to chop up his employees' wives and mail the parts to them in a box, Se7en style, if they ever disobeyed him. That's a slightly more effective threat than your "I'll take my business elsewhere."
Keith Brofsky/Photodisc/Getty Images
"We're not saying selecting 'Close Account' opens a trap door into spikes, but we're not saying it doesn't."
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