--- title: Woman Swallows $7,000 to Keep Cash From Husband description: A Colombian woman who reportedly swallowed more than $7,000 during an argument with her husband had to have $5,700 removed in surgery. canonical: https://time.com/4769035/woman-swallows-7000-cash/ author: Megan McCluskey article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-05-05T19:09:59.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:43:24.611Z og:title: Woman Swallows More Than $7,000 to Keep Cash From Husband og:description: "It seems it was an act of desperation" og:url: https://time.com/4769035/woman-swallows-7000-cash/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Woman Swallows More Than $7,000 to Keep Cash From Husband twitter:description: "It seems it was an act of desperation" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Woman Swallows More Than $7,000 to Keep Cash From Husband  by [Megan McCluskey](https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/)  ## Megan McCluskey Staff Writer May 5, 2017 7:09 PM UTC  by [Megan McCluskey](https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/)  ## Megan McCluskey Staff Writer May 5, 2017 7:09 PM UTC A [Colombian](http://www.thedrive.com/news/8249/mercedes-benz-a-class-crashes-in-colombian-street-race) woman who reportedly swallowed more than $7,000 during an [argument with her husband](http://motto.time.com/4708476/conversations-to-have-before-having-baby/) had $5,700 in U.S. $100 bills removed from her stomach in [surgery](http://time.com/4767209/jimmy-kimmel-childrens-hospital-los-angeles/). The woman into the Hospital Universitario de Santander in Bucaramanga complaining of severe stomach pain before telling doctors that she had swallowed between $7,000 and $9,000 to keep her husband from getting his hands on the cash, according to [UPI](http://www.upi.com/Odd%5FNews/2017/05/05/Woman-swallows-at-least-7000-during-argument-with-husband/1351493996789/?utm%5Fsource=sec&utm%5Fcampaign=sl&utm%5Fmedium=1). She said she had been saving the money — which she had earned by selling household electronics — for a vacation to Panama, but had swallowed it after getting in a dispute with her husband over the funds. “Fifty-seven 100-dollar bills were found and extracted by the orifice opened in the stomach in the gastronomy, through which some extra rolls (of money) were found in the intestine, which advanced to the colon, the lower part of the intestine, in order to be evacuated by normal means through the patient’s intestinal movements,” Chief of Surgery Dr. Juan Pablo Serrano told [Global News](http://globalnews.ca/news/3424213/colombian-woman-eats-7000-in-dispute-with-husband/). Serrano added that the unwrapped rolls indicated the woman wasn’t attempting to smuggle the money illegally. “She ate rolls of bills, they were not wrapped up for any form of illicit transport,” he explained. “It seems it was an act of desperation by this woman, due to the problem she was facing.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4769035/woman-swallows-7000-cash/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4769035/woman-swallows-7000-cash/"},"headline":"Woman Swallows More Than $7,000 to Keep Cash From Husband","datePublished":"2017-05-05T19:09:59.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:43:24.611Z","description":"\"It seems it was an act of desperation\"","url":"https://time.com/4769035/woman-swallows-7000-cash/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Money","Colombia","Bizarre","cash"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Megan McCluskey","jobTitle":"Staff Writer","url":"https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4769035/woman-swallows-7000-cash/","name":"Woman Swallows More Than $7,000 to Keep Cash From Husband"}}]}] ```