Why One Man Bought 150 Tons Of Cashmere In The Gobi Desert With Millions In Cash

Last year, 28-year-old Matt Scanlan carried $2 million in cash, packed into flimsy plastic grocery bags, into the Gobi Desert.

He had transferred the money to a bank in Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia, but when he arrived

after flying 20 hours from New York, he discovered that no single bank would give him all the money at once.

 So he shuttled around to six different locations where tellers gave him bags and bags of bundled-up cash.

 He proceeded to pack all of it into a land cruiser, to prepare for another 20 hours of driving along dusty dirt roads to get to goat herders who would sell him raw cashmere.

"I packed them into the backseat of the car from floor to ceiling, all the way to the end of the car," Scanlan tells Fast Company.

"You couldn't see out of the back window. It was just stacks of money."