So a housewife walked into a bank with title documents and walked out with $30 million. Well, her husband walked out with $30 million that after a board meeting with himself he pledged for $300 million in loans to finance equity investments in road projects that have as much chance of future tolls as the Burmese did against British India in 1825.
The bank that lent against the ghost collateral was funded by private equity investors that sold to a foreign mutual fund, which loaded up millions of shares, and was included in at least one Vanguard Index Fund with an interesting footnote on page 13, after the diligence of a gin and tonic flying over the Himalayas.
It turned out that the bank had also made loans to an overleveraged coffee baron who chose flight off a bridge rather than repayment. Insiders sold before disclosing that the coffee baron was a borrower. The stock is nestled in a portfolio at the foot of the Wasatch mountains and in the memory of the baron's family.
