It turns out that a 69-year-old gentleman, suffering from schizophrenia, was behind the ripped-up bank notes.

His 65-year-old sister, Maria, who lives on Avenida de Salobreña, contacted the Policia Nacional to inform them that her brother had ripped up his share of their inheritance money from the sale of farmland.

It appears that he had taken the 27,000 euros in 500-euro notes – 54 of them – and quite literally ripped them up and flung the pieces from the balcony of his flat above Plaza Las Esplanadas in Motril.

The police are inclined to believe the sister’s explanation, as she has bank documents to prove that her brother had withdrawn that amount in cash and that it comes from the sale of the said property. There are also several witness that can attest to these facts. Consequently, the police are on the point of closing the investigation and handing in their findings to a magistrate.

And here’s where the trouble starts: the problem is that only 66 pieces were recovered and handed in. Now, even if he had only ripped each note into four separate pieces, there would be 217 pieces, but the pieces recovered represent much less than a quarter of each banknote, meaning that there must be a lot, lot more of the pieces that were not handed in.

Now, the standard practice is that if you turn up with over half of a destroyed banknote, the Bank of Spain will change it for you. However, under ‘exceptional circumstances’ the Bank of Spain would consider accepting less than 50% of a bank note.

But we’re not talking about one bank note, but 54 of them, so the original owner would be very, very, fortunate indeed to get back even a small part of that 27,000 euros.

You can read our original article HERE

We’ll let you know how it all turns out when we receive news of further developments.