Hidden treasure trove: Spanish man finds 2 million baht in walls of dilapidated house

A Spanish man named Toño Piñeiro experienced a rollercoaster of emotions when he discovered £47,500 (about 2 million baht) hidden in the walls of a dilapidated house he had recently purchased. The house, located in the northwestern part of Spain, had been abandoned for over 40 years, and Piñeiro hoped to renovate it into a comfortable retirement home.

While demolishing the walls during the renovation, the Spanish man stumbled upon an almost unbelievable sight: six cans containing cash equivalent to about 2 million baht. Naturally, this unexpected windfall brought him great joy. However, this joy was short-lived as the origin and value of the discovered banknotes would quickly turn his fortune upside down.

After gathering all the banknotes and taking them to the bank, Piñeiro experienced a sudden, crushing disappointment. It turned out that the majority of the banknotes were in a now-defunct Spanish currency, the peseta, which was phased out in 2002 when the Euro, the European Union’s official currency, replaced it.

Piñeiro’s disappointment deepened when the bank employee informed him that he had missed the deadline for exchanging the old pesetas for euros. As a result, the Spanish government’s imposed cut-off date for currency conversion had long passed, rendering the large sum of money discovered in his walls worthless. Additionally, some of the banknotes had been damaged due to improper storage and could not be exchanged at all.

Nevertheless, not all was lost, as the Spanish man managed to salvage about £30,000 (approximately 1.3 million baht) by selecting some well-preserved banknotes and selling them to collectors. He planned to use the money to repair the house’s roof and intends to keep the remaining old banknotes as souvenirs.