--- title: Here's What $20 Million Stashed Inside a Mattress Looks Like description: This is what the spoils of what is reportedly the largest pyramid scheme ever uncovered by federal agents looks like. authors: - name: Rob Wile url: https://money.com/author/rob-wile/ at_money_since: 2017 articles: 191 covers: - Personal Finance - Business - Career Advice - Economy and Politics - Education - Housing - Identity Theft - Insurance - Investing - Lifestyle - Retirement - Shopping - Taxes - Technology social: - https://x.com/rjwile former_staff: true published: '2017-01-24T20:08:42.000Z' modified: '2017-01-24T20:08:42.000Z' section: Personal Finance tags: - onetime word_count: 327 canonical: https://money.com/20-million-mattress-stash/ type: Article source: structured-blocks --- > **Disclosure:** We research all brands listed and may earn a fee from our partners. Research and financial considerations may influence how brands are displayed. Not all brands are included. [Learn more](https://money.com/page/disclaimer/). ![cash in mattress](https://img.money.com/2017/01/170124_mattress2.jpg) It's a question many of us would be lucky to face: Where to stash $20 million in cash? For Cleber Rene Rizerio Rocha, a 28-year-old Brazilian national, the answer was right in his bedroom. Unfortunately, it wasn't as good as a solution as he thought: Federal agents discovered $20 million in 20s, 50s and 100s hidden inside Rocha's box-spring mattress earlier this month, according to a criminal [complaint](https://www.justice.gov/usao-ma/pr/agents-seize-approximately-20-million-and-arrest-brazilian-national-scheme-launder) from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Boston. Rocha is implicated in what is said to be the largest pyramid scheme ever uncovered by the Feds, according to the number of victims involved. On Monday, the Attorney's office [Tweeted](https://twitter.com/DMAnews1/status/823645674210230273) a photo of the haul. Rocha, the Feds say, had been acting as a courier in an alleged plot to launder millions gained from unwitting customers who were paying a $1,425 fee to act as agents of a phone company called TelexFree. Their task was to help post online ads, but the ads were never actually published, [according to a *Boston Globe* report](https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2016/10/24/ceo-telexfree-pleads-guilty-faces-years-prison/gqDmehkbkXMwnifpToJTxI/story.html). Instead, the heads of TelexFree simply pocketed the fee money. The *Globe* said the scheme ensnared nearly 1 million people around the world before collapsing in 2014. One of the ringleaders of the scam has already pleaded guilty, while another remains in hiding in Brazil. The investigation has been ongoing, and recently, the U.S. Attorney's complaint states, a would-be launderer asked to transfer millions in TelexFree money to Brazil began cooperating with the Feds. Rocha gave this launderer a suitcase he said contained $2.2 million during an hour-long meeting at a restaurant in west Boston, the *Globe* reported. But before arresting Rocha for money laundering, federal agents followed Rocha to an apartment complex in Westborough, Mass. "That night," the complaint continues, "federal agents searched an apartment at the Westborough complex and seized a massive stockpile of cash hidden in a box spring." 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