Originally Posted by
jefi99
In 2004, during the Athen Olympic Games, I was staying at Le Meridien in Munich. The day before checking out I had received a very large amount of cash
(in a fully legal business transaction, if anyone should speculate 
), and placed it in the in-room safe. After checkout, I took a cab to the airport. After approximately ten minutes in the cab, I realized that I forgot something, and asked the taxi driver to return to the hotel. I explained the matter (without mentioning any details) to a front desk staff, who then escorted me to my room to open the door. We were both a bit surprised to see one of the cleaning staff sitting comfortably in a chair, watching the Olympics on TV. Well, that was none of my business, but I discreetly opened the safe and pulled out my
€75k.
I'm sure that the tax people aren't reading stuff like this....
My biggest mistake was buying a roundtrip ticket (the night before) to Washington National with a layover of 5 hours to deliver some paperwork to the NIH just a couple of months after 9/11, obviously traveling without any luggage. They didn't pull out the rubber gloves, but I got every other form of screening known to mankind.