A government financial adviser to Iraq’s prime minister has denied rumors that mice and rats had eaten up to 62 trillion Iraqi dinars, equivalent of $47 billion dollars (1,300 dinars = $1).
According to Rudaw, a media channel based in the Kurdistan autonomous region, “some websites and platforms claimed that rats and mice had eaten 62 trillion dinars of Iraqi cash, while an adviser to Prime Minister Shia Al-Sudani dismissed the reports, describing them as ‘illogical.’”
The report follows several other Iraqi Arabic news reports about the allegation that mice and rats have been consuming the country’s cash reserves. One report on July 22, which has 400,000 views on X/Twitter, says “There is a breach in the money storage facilities that led to the destruction of 62 trillion dinars due to rodents and rats.”
Now officials are pushing back. “For several days, an illogical claim has been circulating on some news websites and social media accounts, alleging that rats and mice have eaten 62 trillion dinars of Iraqi cash,” Mudhar Mohammed Saleh, financial adviser to the prime minister, told Rudaw Media Network. “These rumors are illogical and completely far from the truth.”
Previous incidences of mice, rats eating cash
Mice and rats have been known to eat money. Rats ate $18,000 worth of cash in an ATM in India in 2018; mice ate through $1,000 of a Missouri man’s savings in 2008.
Saleh is used to dealing with more mundane issues. For instance in mid-July, the financial adviser “confirmed that the unemployment rate in Iraq has fallen to 13%, as a result of the implementation of a comprehensive government program based on a practical, multidimensional planning vision,” according to an Iraqi News Agency report.
He went on to explain that it was unlikely that animals could have eaten all the money. “The size of the monetary mass in Iraq does not exceed 100 trillion dinars [$76.4b.], which consists of the currency in circulation and the reserve funds. Therefore, such a rumor is economically illogical and unbelievable.”
Oddly, this statement didn’t actually address whether some amounts of cash had been eaten by rodents. Rudaw went on to note that he said “official data shows that approximately 88% of the total monetary supply in Iraq is outside the banking system, saved by individuals… this money is not stored in a special vault, so there is no possibility of it being exposed to such damage.”
He claimed that Iraq has strict management for its financial reserves and monetary system, adding that large sums of cash are not left without oversight. “The rumor aims to create confusion and incite public opinion, especially among uninformed individuals who do not understand the nature of our country’s monetary system and how it works. This is an issue that must be addressed wisely and logically,” he said, asking the public to refrain from spreading misleading news. He also said it was an insult to people’s intelligence.
AlJeebal, an Arabic language website, noted that “over the past few days, activists on social media and some local media outlets have been circulating news about ‘62 trillion dinars being lost inside the Central Bank due to mice and rats.’”
The report noted that financial affairs expert Haider Al-Sheikh told the platform that “the talk about the destruction of 62 trillion dinars due to a mouse entering the Central Bank’s vault is false and baseless.” He pointed out that “such news attempts to confuse the public, but it does not affect the Iraqi economy. This was confirmed after being verified by official sources within the bank itself and by officials there.”
The expert added that “financial liquidity in Iraq is fully available, whether in Iraqi dinars or US dollars, with foreign reserves exceeding $100 billion.” He noted that there is plenty of cash liquidity in Iraq. “Any talk to the contrary is false and merely aims to confuse the public, especially in light of the ongoing political and electoral competition.”