Billions of dollars worth of U.S. coins and bills disappear from circulation annually—more than $70 million in pennies alone in a typical year. Some of this vanished money simply gets lost, or is worn out, added to collections, or squirreled away in cookie jars and piggy banks. Some of it languishes forgotten in the pockets of unworn clothing or lurks in the obscure corners of handbags, upholstery, drawers, and closets. But much of it slips away into a shady labyrinth of international finance designed to evade taxes and "launder" illicitly earned money, making it seem to have a legitimate source. This practice is so pervasive that U.S. Treasury officials estimate they can physically locate only about 20 percent of the bills they print. Much of the remaining 80 percent presumably disappears into the global laundering apparatus.
