Yes: Sh15 billion can be carried in a truck!
The Sunday Nation
Nairobi,
12 October 2014
Former Prime Minister Raila Odinga has been making claims that, during the transition period after the last general elections, Sh15 billion was stolen from the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) and delivered to a secret bank account in a truck. Several people have asked me whether such money can be transported that way. My standard answer has that if I wanted to steal Sh15bn from the CBK, I wouldn’t carry it in cash: I would take it away Goldenberg style!
Nevertheless, it would be interesting to find out what size of vehicle one would need to carry this amount of money in cash. First of all, I must confess that I have done something similar to this in a past column. Regular readers might remember it from the year 2010.
Still, let us assume that the thieves were intelligent enough to carry only Sh1,000-notes. Sh15 billion divided by Sh1,000 is 15 million notes. The question then is whether 15 million notes can fit in a truck.
Normally, banks arrange cash in bundles of 100 notes each; 15 million divided by 100 gives 150,000 bundles. How much space do these occupy?
We need three dimensions of measurements to work it out: a Sh1,00-note is 80mm wide and 150mm long. In addition, a bundle of 100 crisp new notes is about 10mm thick. Therefore each bundle occupies 10mm x 80mm x 150mm = 120,000 cubic-millimetres.
Let’s convert that into more common units – cubic-centimetres (so-called “cc”). 1cm has 10mm; therefore, one cubic-centimetre has 10mm x 10mm x10mm = 1,000 cubic-millimetres. So, the 100-note bundle occupies 120cc. When we remember that one litre has 1,000cc, we realise that 120cc is pretty small!
But the 15billion shillings comes in 150,000 bundles; the total volume occupied by this money is 120cc x 150,000 = 19,000,000cc. It is easy to convert this to litres – just divide by 1,000 to get 18,000L – but that does not help much.
The better unit to work with is the cubic-metre. This is the one that cargo transporters and shipping agents use: they call it the “CBM”. One cubic metre is simply the volume of a cube measuring 1m-by-1m-by-1m. The standard 20-foot container has 30CBM, while the 40-foot one has 60CBM.
Now one metre has 100cm; therefore 1CBM is 100cm x 100cm x 100cm = 1,000,000cc. Thus the 18,000,000cc of our Sh15 billion is equivalent to just 18CBM! That is, 18,000,000 divided by 1,000,000.
So, it is possible to carry Sh15 billion in cash in a truck – actually a medium-sized truck will do the job. But what about the weight?
Well; large denomination bank notes weigh about one gramme; so 15 million notes come to 15 million grammes which is 15,000kg, or 15 tonnes. This is easily manageable in a medium-sized truck.
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