This is what $20M hidden in a mattress looks like

WESTBOROUGH, Mass. — About $20 million in cash that was hidden inside a box spring in a Massachusetts apartment was seized earlier this month in a pyramid scheme investigation.

The wide-ranging investigation into an internet telecom company that was actually a massive international pyramid scheme turned up a whole lot of cash hidden in a box spring.

The cash was found in early January inside a Westborough apartment by investigators who had tailed a Brazilian man from New York. That man, Cleber Rene Rizerio Rocha, 28, was charged with conspiring to commit money laundering.

The cash seizure was made in connection with an investigation into TelexFree, a Marlborough, Massachusetts-based company that purportedly sold VOIP telephone service.

TelexFree had few customers and made most of its revenue from people buying into the company with a promise of payouts for posting online ads for it, prosecutors have said. They were paid with money from new recruits, often friends and family of earlier investors.

Carlos Wanzeler, one of the founders of the company, allegedly fled to Brazil in 2014.

Associated Press