Cocaine makes for filthy lucre, Credit data theft gets a new benchmark

Good day for laundering money; Bad day for 130 million cardholders

GOOD DAY FOR: Laundering money, after chemist Yuegang Zuo reported that 90 percent of U.S. dollars in circulation carry traces of cocaine. That doesn’t mean that all cash was involved in drug deals or used to sniff coke lines, Zuo said; it can also become contaminated in bank money-counting machines. But while the amount of cocaine on dollars isn’t enough to pose a health risk, paper money does often carry disease-causing organisms. (CNN)

BAD DAY FOR: 130 million cardholders, after federal prosecutors charged ex-Secret Service informant Albert Gonzalez, 28, with stealing their credit and debit account information. Gonzalez is already in jail for swiping 40 million credit card accounts, the previous record for identity theft. (AP in Yahoo! Finance)

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up