As part of the ongoing scheme, employees and vendors were paid in cash while hundreds of thousands of dollars were hidden in the restaurants, in personal safes, and in bank safe deposit boxes.

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Most banks that now have cash prefer to deposit funds at the European Central Bank (ECB), which in turn lends it on to those that are short of it.

ECONOMIST: Interest rates

Aussino said the exchange also expressed reservations about Aussino's future access to land critical to its operations citing Myanmar's ban on foreign ownership of land and its post-merger plan to deposit 65% of its cash in Mr. Zaw Zaw's own Ayeyarwady Bank, which also is subject to U.S. sanctions.

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