He did not buy that coat on a politician's salary.
Louie Miller disappeared, dear
After drawing out his cash.
And Macheath spends like a sailor;
Did our boy do something rash?
After drawing out his cash.
And Macheath spends like a sailor;
Did our boy do something rash?
— The Threepenny Opera, "Mack the Knife" (Blitzstein translation)
A character is suspected of being involved in illegal activities because he owns things he shouldn't be able to afford on his modest salary (a big house, fancy sports car, expensive watch, etc.) or does costly activities for fun (equestrian sports, Hookers and Blow).
It might not actually be illegal money. It could be the spouse's money, family inheritance, or simply that the character has chosen to skimp in other areas to have one or two things that are nicer than they "should" be able to afford. Even in the cases where the money isn't obtained by illegal means, though, people suspect that it was, so gossip is rampant.
Compare Conspicuous Consumption and Fell Off the Back of a Truck. Sometimes related to "Friends" Rent Control, Informed Poverty, Improbable Food Budget, and Foreign Money Is Proof of Guilt. If you're completely unable to do anything useful with the money, it's Money for Nothing. Contrast Affluent Ascetic. May overlap with A Fool and His New Money Are Soon Parted, since overspending is the quickest way for someone to squander a windfall.
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Examples:
Advertising
- The Flintstones: In one short, Fred Flintstone, an employee at Slate Rock Gravel Company. His wife Wilma, a stay-at-home mom. Yet on this working man's salary, how did Wilma afford a necklace made of huge rocks? An investigation
would reveal that Fred had the Flintmobile insured with GEICO, saving the family untold amounts of money. Their friendship with the Rubbles would soon become strained.
Clarence Bradley, former co-worker: Mr. Slate pays well. But he doesn't pay that well.
Anime & Manga
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: In Diamond is Unbreakable, after Josuke, Okuyasu, and Shigechi cash in a winning lottery ticket, it didn't take long for Tomoko to find out Josuke has been spending much more money than usual, and immediately has his bank account frozen.
- Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury: At one point, Feng Jun manages to dig up that the repairs and refurbishment for the Aerial near the end of the first cour involved a suspicious amount of money, far more than what would be necessary for the repairs of a single mobile suit as well as what a company as small as Shin Sei would realistically be able to muster. While she didn't know it at the time, she had found the first couple of clues for the Quiet Zero project.
Comic Books
- Asterix: In Asterix in Switzerland, Governor Varius Flavus embezzles from his district's tax revenues so that he can throw lavish parties for himself and his friends. The massive disparity between what he spends on orgies and what he reports as his district's income and sends on to Rome gets Caesar to send Quaestor Vexatius Sinusitus to audit his books. When Sinusitus flat-out makes mention of this while eyeing the lavish palace, Flavus merely handwaves it with "you can do a lot with good taste" while handing him the poisoned vegetable broth to get rid of him before he can actually look through the spending records.
- Shadowland (2010): In the Shadowland: Power-Man tie-in, Victor Alvarez the new Power-Man is confronted by his mother about where he's getting all of the extra money he's been providing to help pay the bills since she found out he actually quit his old job working at a pizza parlor (and the money he's been bringing in is too much to be explained by a job like that anyway). She accuses him of drug dealing, not knowing he's been earning money as a superhero for hire.
Fan Works
- Danny Phantom: Stranded: In Blackmailed, Collette knows that her parents have been keeping track of how much she's been spending, so she specifically asks her mother for some extra money in order to avoid stumbling into this.
- Karmic Epilogue: Lila's downfall is set into motion when the authorities notice just how much one of Felice's subordinates has been spending lately. Turns out he was stealing from his boss; while investigating, they discovered how much of Felice's money was being channeled into Lila's accounts.
- Nemesis (BeaconHill): Taylor tells her dad that she won a scholarship to Immaculata, which he's thrilled about, but when he later investigates, he learns that it wasn't a scholarship; her fees were actually paid in full — from an account in her name, at a bank he doesn't recognise. She's being paid handsomely by Tattletale to eavesdrop on confidential PRT meetings using her bugs.
"Five figures of money don't come out of nowhere. I didn't pay it. Your coffee shop job isn't even close. And because you didn't tell me the truth about it, and I don't know where it came from, I can only assume you're getting it from somewhere illegal." There was something scared in his gaze, and he was looking right at me. "Are you?"
- Defied in Not the intended use (Zantetsuken Reverse). Soma Cruz has the power to create money when injured, but only in American pennies. As his roommate Kazuya points out, even if he knew where to exchange money, large amounts of money is suspicious for a teenager, large amounts of American currency is even more suspicious for someone living in Japan, and pennies are just odd. It's no longer an issue when Soma's American friend Hammer volunteers to exchange the money (presumably in America, possibly claiming it's from tips), but Kazuya adds that while they'll eat better and have money stashed for emergencies, someone's bound to notice if a bunch of starving students buy a game console.
- In The Return to Gravity Falls, Star grows suspicious of Arline when he notices just how much she's willing to pay in order to stay in one of his motel rooms. Her Arbitrarily Large Bank Account lets her eat the increasingly ridiculous costs with ease.
- Tough Love (Twilight): While contemplating suing the Cullens, Charlie started looking into their finances and discovered that they're already being investigated, suspected of insider trading and potential involvement with the drug trade.
Charlie: You know what the average internist in Washington makes? I looked it up. $191,580 a year. That's a lot. Most folks could live off that pretty nicely. But the Cullens aren't most folks. They've got some mighty expensive hobbies—like car collecting. Remember that car that Edward drove you to the prom in? The Aston Martin? That car cost $35,000 more than Carlisle's annual salary. The Lamborghini? That cost almost $100,000 more. And someone has a Porsche, and Alice and Rosalie buy designer gowns for a junior prom... [grimacing] Get real, Bella. No one has that much money to burn. And it's not as if anyone else in the house works. Esme stays home and makes things pretty for Carlisle and the kids, and the kids go to high school, drive around, and shop.
- Working Together (raise_a_glass): Davos' ability to afford staying in a fancy Manhattan hotel leads Jessica to suspect that he's on someone's payroll.
Films — Live-Action
- 3:10 to Yuma (2007): Shortly before the climax, Wade offers Evans a thousand dollars to let him go (in 1884 Arizona, when $18 a day was considered a large salary). Evans turns it down partially because of this trope; the moment he starts spending that money, people will start asking questions.
- In American Gangster, Frank Lucas first attracts police attention when he's spotted in the front row of a high-profile boxing match wearing a mink coat (which is Truth in Television, by the way).
- A major plot point of Brewster's Millions (1985) is that the protagonist Brewster cannot reveal where he got his money or why he's spending it so irresponsibly as part of the condition of the will setting the main plot in motion (he has to spend off 30 million in a month to inherit 300 million). As a result, this trope gets invoked repeatedly by those around him.
- Buffalo Soldiers: Sgt. Lee quickly catches on to the criminal activities going on in the base when he notices that Pvt. Garcia is wearing a very expensive watch that he has no business having based on his salary.
- Pops up in the movie Clue. It's later revealed that he sold airplane parts on the black market to make his money. And that his mother is very much alive.
Wadsworth: And Colonel, you drive a very expensive car for someone who lives on a colonel's pay.
Colonel Mustard: I don't. I came into money during the war when I lost my mommy and daddy.
Wadsworth: [confused] - In The Crow: Salvation, the corrupt chief of police comments about one cop being killed by the Crow when the latter crashed into a wall with the sports car of the corrupt cop.
- The surviving robbers in Dead Presidents are caught because one of them starts spending the stolen money right away and way beyond his means. There is a good chance that he did it because he was feeling guilty for all the deaths they caused and wanted to be caught.
- In Dial M for Murder, the cops begin to suspect Tony of something when he starts buying everything in cash, in used one-pound notes.
- El Camino: Todd used his cut of Walt's drug money to buy himself a huge apartment, a flat-screen TV with speakers, and lots of kitsch furniture, pretty much what you'd expect from a young criminal who struck it big (and clearly isn't into Hookers and Blow). At this point, he has no clear legal source of income, and he wouldn't have been able to afford it in his previous job as a pest exterminator either. Still, it seems he managed to stay under the radar until after his death.
- Enola Holmes 2: Enola Holmes figures out that Superintendent Grail, the policeman who's arrested her, is a Dirty Cop because he's wearing a silk shirt, something that would be beyond his salary even for a high-ranking official.
- The Flintstones (1994): Invoked by Cliff Vandercave, who is embezzling large amounts of money from Slate & Co.; he gives Fred, who was promoted to act as a patsy, a "raise" from the embezzled money and encourages him to spend it liberally. When Fred finally figures it out, Cliff points out that with a house full of new furniture and appliances, a new car, new fancy clothes, and nights out at expensive restaurants, it isn't going to take much to convince everyone that Fred is the embezzler.
- The French Connection: Popeye and Cloudy, while relaxing at a bar after a shift, notice a small-time diner owner racking up a large bill with a lawyer known to work with drug dealers, then look into his finances and find he doesn't make very much. This reveals a smuggling operation, putting the film's plot in motion.
- Ghost (1990): A variation when Sam notices an excess of money in several accounts, not in line with the holder's supposed income. Truth in Television — this is often how money laundering is discovered.
- GoodFellas: Jimmy berates a fellow conspirator in the Lufthansa heist for buying a conspicuous pink Cadillac. Jimmy says that he specifically told everyone not to make big purchases yet because the cops will be watching them in particular, and does not care when the man tries to defend the purchase by saying that the car is under his mother-in-law's name. The next guy who comes in the door has his wife wearing a luxurious mink coat, which Jimmy angrily demands that they get rid of. Henry is given a small share and is likewise told not to spend it, to which he agrees, but the movie then Gilligan Cuts to him shouting to his family that he bought the most expensive Christmas tree he could. General fear about the problems associated with this trope, in addition to simple greed, leads to Jimmy having most of the co-conspirators killed in lieu of payment.
- Murtaugh is suspected of this in Lethal Weapon 4. It is mentioned offhand that Internal Affairs got an anonymous tip that he is taking bribes, an accusation nobody takes seriously. But then Riggs notices him casually handing out large sums of money to his kids, and Roger gets evasive when asked about it, not to mention his nice suits, nice boat, nice house (which he could also afford to remodel twice throughout the series after it was destroyed by various criminals), etc. Riggs eventually gets around to grilling him about how he can do all this on a cop's salary. It turns out the money is coming mostly from Murtaugh's wife, who is secretly a very successful (if cheesy) romance novelist writing under a Pen Name. Murtaugh wouldn't admit it because his friends would never let him live it down.
- The Living Daylights: Koskov's luxury tastes are already noticeable when Bond brings him some food and liquor at the safehouse but the fact he bought a Stradivarius cello to Kara is definitely abnormal. This is the lead that allows Bond to find out about his ties with Whitaker. Before his defection, Koskov was about to be arrested for "misusing state funds".
- Low Tide: Peter knows how bad of an idea spending stolen money straight away is (despite only having ever committed one crime) and insists on hanging on to the money until the end of the summer. Alan ignores him and uses several gold coins to buy a new car, with predictably bad results. Ironically, initially the spending attracts the wrong kind of suspicion and make Red assume that Alan is a police informant.
- Mad Money: Ironically, this arises as a result of trying to avoid suspicious spending. Jackie's unemployed husband Bob buys stocks to explain their windfall from the Federal Reserve money, but the tens of thousands of dollars he spends buying those stocks attract the IRS anyway.
- Never Cry Wolf: After two wolves from the pack Tyler's studying are apparently killed for the expensive bounty on them, Mike is wearing an expensive new jacket and has a new set of false teeth.
- Normal (2026): The town has less than 2,000 people but openly talks about raising almost 17 million for a renovation project, the mayor goes on cruises, and the sheriff has a McMansion and lots of rare whiskeys. It isn't too surprising Normal is a Town with a Dark Secret.
- Averted at the end of Ocean's Eleven. When Danny is released on parole, the other members of his Caper Crew pick him up in an ordinary car. We soon see why when they're followed by goons working for the Big Bad, who clearly still suspects Danny's involvement in the robbery of his casino. Then played straight in the sequel which shows that by the time the Big Bad locates and confronts all of the crew, they have all spent several million dollars each of their respective cuts, with the exception of one man who invested it all.
- This happens near the end of The Pink Panther (1963) when Clouseau is suspected of being the jewel thief. When questioned in this matter about how his wife (who is actually the thief) is able to afford such expensive clothing on his police salary, Clouseau naively asserts that she's very frugal with the housekeeping budget.
- Polar: Defied. Vizla is indicated to have earned millions of dollars as a hitman, but he lives in a quiet mountain cabin and keeps a low profile. This is because Vizla is Properly Paranoid; another hitman who did retire to spend his money on a luxurious Hookers and Blow lifestyle is easily tracked down and killed off.
- Inverted in the extended cut of The Punisher (2004). Frank doesn't suspect his old partner of selling him out until he notices that nearly all of Jimmy Weeks' luxury items are gone; he'd been selling them to cover his gambling debts, which are what Saint used to blackmail him into giving up Frank's information.
- In Rush Hour 2, Lee and Carter interrogate a man who runs an illegal gambling joint (played by Don Cheadle). He tells them some local guy he knew has somehow come into money and has been spreading it around the tables. They prove to him that the money was counterfeit.
- The movie Say Anything... has this as a major part of the plot — the IRS is investigating Diane's father for tax evasion, fraud, and money laundering. Diane's discussion with the agent handling the case is a great rundown on trying to find someone doing this.
- In The Sting, Hooker blows through his entire stake of a large con job in a single afternoon, which alerts the villain to his identity.
- In Superman III, after Gus's Penny Shaving scam is discovered, Corrupt Corporate Executive Ross Webster doesn't think there's any way of catching the perpetrator unless he does something really stupid. Immediately, Gus shows up in a fancy sports car far above what he could afford on his salary.
- S.W.A.T. (2003) actually cleverly hides this in a montage, disguising its significance. During the weekend, all the SWAT members are shown doing mundane things in their downtime: going grocery shopping, attending their children's birthday party, etc. — except the one member taking a date out to an expensive restaurant. When their emergency summons happens, the audience isn't given time to question how this one member is able to spend above his police salary, until it's revealed he's The Mole.
- Tex: Within seconds of seeing his friend Lem's (a gas jockey) new car, Mason straight up asks if he's dealing weed and gets an affirmative reply.
- In the Roger Corman Poe anthology Tales of Terror segment based on "The Black Cat" (and "The Cask of Amontillado") loutish drunkard Montressor Herringbone, having walled up his wife and her lover in the cellar and finding her stash of hidden money, goes on a spree at the tavern, buying drinks for everyone and rousing suspicion with cryptic mutterings on her whereabouts.
- Who's Minding the Mint?: Plays with this. The main character (a treasury employee in charge of printing off new money) is accused of being an embezzler, due to his constantly-changing expensive cars and clothes. In fact, all he's actually doing is always buying new stuff and then returning it before the 30-day warranty expires to get his money back, before getting another expensive suit or car somewhere else and doing the same thing over again. He has nothing to hide from the auditors, at least until one sheet of new money is accidentally used to wrap up some brownies he got, ruining them and forcing him to break back into the mint after hours with a Ragtag Bunch of Misfits to print off a replacement sheet of money (as well as payment for his team).
- Wrath of Man: After their first big job, Jackson warns his crew that they should only spend money on necessities like covering bills to avoid suspicion. Jackson is understandably annoyed to find that Jan ignored the advice in favor of getting a high-end loft apartment and motorcycle.
Literature
- Anthony Price:
- In Soldier No More, a subplot involves the mystery of where intelligence officer David Audley is getting the money to perform extensive renovations on his ancestral home. It turns out he's the pseudonymous author of a trashy but bestselling historical novel mentioned in passing at several points in the story.
- In The Old Vengeful, the late Commander Loftus had tastes in food and travel that he shouldn't have been able to afford on his income, let alone leave a significant amount of money to his daughter. It's the more puzzling because, by the time the story opens, an investigation has already ruled out all the obvious possibilities.
- Babel, or the Necessity of Violence: Implied regarding Professor Lovell, though it's never used as evidence against him. He can afford expenses, including a second home for his Secret Other Family, that people note to be beyond a professor's salary, and is later exposed as being part of a secret bloc that's engineering a war with China to seize its silver reserves.
- Ben Safford Mysteries: While it isn't emphasized until after The Reveal, in Unexpected Developments, the corrupt Lieutenant Colonel Yates spends quite a bit on his playboy lifestyle.
Captain Ursula Richmond: [H]e spent money like water.
Congressman Val Oakes: He was a womanizer. He was trying to impress you.
Captain Ursula Richmond: Then he should have chosen a girl friend who didn't know to the penny how much a lieutenant colonel makes. - An Invoked Trope in Brotherhood of the Rose by David Morrell. Saul assassinates a businessman under orders from CIA spymaster Elliot, goes to a Dead Drop for further instructions, and finds a pile of cash and orders to play blackjack at an Atlanta casino. He's puzzled by this but obeys orders, not suspecting that Elliot is framing him as a Rogue Agent because the man he killed was a personal friend of the President of the United States.
- Bruce Coville's Book of... Magic: Discussed in the story "Visions", where the girls briefly consider wishing for lots of money but decide against it on account of if they do so, they're sure to get investigated by nosy tax agents if they spend lots, or at least nosy families even if they just spend small amounts at a time (and one remarks on how her own mother considers her spending money on anything, other than building up her college fund, to be suspicious).
- CHERUB Series: This is what kicks off the main plot of "The Killing". A notorious small-time crook, heavily in debt and with two failing businesses on the verge of bankruptcy, suddenly has his fortunes make a complete one-eighty. He pays off the loans on both his establishments, buys a new car, and even purchases a lease on a second pub, which spends a significant amount on redecorating. The neighbours start joking that he either won the lottery or robbed a bank, and the police know he definitely didn't win the lottery so they start an investigation into where all the money really came from, since there's a near 100% chance it didn't come about legally.
- Ciaphas Cain: In The Traitor's Hand, the investigation into a weapon-smuggling ring turns up a freight dispatcher "spending three times his annual income on obscura and joygirls".
- Stephen King's Different Seasons: In "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption," Red refers to this when he's talking about the scams the wardens of Shawshank have pulled, and how Andy is valuable in the prison because he knows how to wash filthy lucre:
"And money itself becomes a problem after a while. You can’t just stuff it into your wallet and then shell out a bunch of crumpled twenties and dog-eared tens when you want a pool built in your backyard or an addition put on your house. Once you get past a certain point, you have to explain where that money came from....and if your explanations aren't convincing enough, you’re apt to wind up wearing a number yourself."
- In the Gaunt's Ghosts novel Salvation's Reach, the senior officers are suspicious of Trooper Costin because of his conspicuous wealth (he's so conspicuous that even Daur's wife, who has no investigative training, comments on it). After hard evidence emerges of a fraud scheme, they immediately look to him but realize that the quantity of money being moved is too much for the dull, unimaginative trooper to be dealing with alone. His platoon leader, Captain Meryn, is behind it, and indirectly kills Costin on the next mission to keep it from getting back to him.
- Heralds of Valdemar: In one of the Tarma and Kethry short stories, Tarma figures out who The Mole is by realizing that one of the guards is wearing jewelry he shouldn't be able to afford (Though this is considered to be grounds for suspicion, not proof in and of itself).
- Homicide Trinity: Hattie Annis has a soft spot for struggling actors and doesn't harass her tenants for late rent (Raymond Dell hasn't paid rent in years). Wolfe singles out Paul Hannah as a suspect because he's been paying his rent on time despite not having a job.
- In the Jack Ryan novels, this is considered one of the telltale signs of a spy. Ryan and his fellow counterintelligence agents love it because it's something that can be checked without a search warrant, and it can be used as probable cause for a search warrant to dig deeper into the suspect's finances.
- James Bond, at the start of Role of Honour, suddenly inherits a quarter-million pounds from an Australian uncle he has never heard of. The following spending spree mandated by said uncle's will makes him seem suspicious in the eyes of his employers since coincidentally there have been a couple of Soviets (called "ambulance chasers") hiring double agents lately. They decide to use that to make it look as if Bond was forced to resign over accusations of bribery, and an "embittered" Bond would be easily recruited by that very organization to go undercover.
- The Jocelyn Shore Mysteries: Death Makes the Cut: Jocelyn suspects the head drama teacher of embezzling school funds due to the lavish sets and costumes for her assistant/alleged boyfriend's ego project play to impress a visiting director. The drama teacher is actually paying for all of that with her retirement fund (albeit only because she's being blackmailed by her assistant) and is uninvolved in the actual embezzlement at the school (with the real embezzler being annoyed at how this suspicious spending makes more people certain money is missing, leading to an audit).
- John Putnam Thatcher: Played With in East is East: At one point, the police inspector investigating the murder asks Thatcher if he was aware that one of his underlings had just gotten a house worth over $1 million. Thatcher tells the inspector that his records are off — the house might have been built recently, but the underling in question bought the land decades previously, well before Maui oceanfront property values skyrocketed.
- The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King: When Frodo and company return to the Shire, they find that Lotho Sackville-Baggins has bought up a lot of property and goods with funds of unknown origin. It's strongly implied that he got the money through illicit trade with Isengard: Saruman paid premium prices for foodstuffs and especially pipeweed, and was probably paying extra so Lotho could take over the Shire completely.
- Meg Langslow Mysteries: In Cockatiels at Seven, Meg's prime suspect in an embezzlement scandal at the office is an administrator who just bought a $2,000,000 house. It turns out she just has a rich family.
- In the Sidney Sheldon novel Nothing Lasts Forever, Paige suspects another doctor at the hospital of being responsible for the theft of drugs when she realizes "he's living like a millionaire on a resident's salary". She's right.
- Mary Monica Pulver's Peter Brichter series has this. The hero lives in extremely comfortable circumstances for a police officer, which regularly causes other cops to regard him suspiciously. However, his wife is the wealthy one.
- In the Prey novel series by John Sandford, Lucas Davenport is a cop who has a fancy house, nice suits, a Porsche, and millions of dollars, but that's because he writes roleplaying games in his off-time. Who knew?
- Sherlock Holmes:
- The Valley of Fear had Holmes mention that Professor Moriarty owned a painting worth many times over his legitimate annual income — purchased for that amount, not appraised. At the time, this was the most tangible piece of evidence Holmes could find against Moriarty.
- One of the clues in Silver Blaze was that the murder victim had a bill in his pocket that a) wasn't on his name (but had to be his, since very few people carry the bills of others) and b) was a sum he could hardly afford.
- Sweet Valley Twins: In Buried Treasure, Jessica and her friend Ellen find $200 in a box buried in the latter's backyard. They show up at school with new things...just as money has been stolen from the class treasury. Sure enough, everyone, including Jessica's own sister, thinks that she and Ellen are the thieves. It ultimately turns out a teacher just misplaced the box with the class money, and it turns up in the art room's supply closet.
- Teen Power Inc.:
- In The Sorcerer's Apprentice, as a mugger terrorizes Raven Hill, Tom gets a job working for magic shop owner Sid Foy. Sid's shop has few customers, and what money he has made recently (along with the rent from an apartment above his store) is lost in one of the muggings. Yet, less than a week later, Sid can afford to bring in lots of new stock (such as expensive computer games) to attract younger customers. Sid is innocent, and the money is from a bank loan.
- In The Secret of Banyan Bay, one inhabitant of a town plagued by smuggling is a painter with a fancy house and tacky (yet expensive) designer items, even though her paintings don't sell very well. The painter is the creator of the designer items but feels embarrassed about this.
- The Three Investigators:
- In Death Trap Mine, Jupiter becomes suspicious of Mrs. Macomber after learning she had lost her nest egg and had to sell her business and work there under its new owner, only to then disappear around the time of a bank robbery involving a female getaway driver whose description matches hers (and whose partners were three men, one of whom's recently been discovered dead in the titular mine), and eventually resurface in Twin Lakes, New Mexico (the town where the action is taking place) and now be wealthy enough to buy a large piece of land. It turns out she was called away from work to care for a dying aunt, who subsequently left her the money she used to buy her new home, and she simply never bothered to tell her employer because she disliked the other woman.
- Downplayed in Crimebusters book Reel Trouble, in that it's only mentioned after the case has been solved. During a conversation with the Investigators, Sax Sendler (owner of the talent agency that manages a band called the Hula Whoops, and many more) comments of the book's lead criminal, the boss of a group that's been stealing master tapes from various bands and producing pirated tapes from them, that this explains some of said criminal's behavior — "Never could figure how that dude paid for those expensive threads on a newspaper salary. You should have seen the Mercedes he drove. Big, black, and a block long."
- In The Twilight Saga, the Cullens spent much more than they should have been able to on cool cars, designer clothes, etc. for Carlisle being a doctor and the only source of income. Bella wondered about this before she knew about Alice being psychic and able to predict lottery results and the fluctuations of the stock market.
- In What the Night Knows, by Dean Koontz, the Calvinos live in a house well above what honest cop John could normally afford because his wife has a financially and artistically successful career as a painter.
- Discussed in the fourth arc of Worm. When the Undersiders go out on the town the day after they've successfully robbed a bank, Brian warns Lisa not to spend too much money shopping so the cops and superheroes don't get suspicious. When Lisa ends up spending almost five hundred dollars on clothes for herself and Taylor, Brian starts to get exasperated, only for Lisa to explain that it's not any more than she usually spends (Lisa also has ready-made excuses in case Taylor's father sees her new clothes).
- You'll Be the Death of Me: Ivy's brother Daniel and Autumn's boyfriend Gabe are suspected of involvement in a drug ring for being able to buy new sneakers and a muscle car, respectively, despite having a low-paying job and no job at all. Gabe is guilty, but Daniel just bought used sneakers, which understandably cost less.
Newspaper Comics
- Dick Tracy:
- A 1950s storyline has Tracy accused of corruption and investigated. It brings up reader concerns about Tracy owning a huge house and driving a fancy car on a cop's salary. Tracy defends it on how he saved for years on the house (which has a hefty mortgage), and the car was a gift from industrialist friend Diet Smith, with the excuse that it lets Tracy "test" the gadgets inside.
- A 1970s tale brings that up again when two cops are suspected of corruption for some spending. Tracy gives them the benefit of the doubt, citing his own experiences of being falsely accused just for spending a windfall (as it turns out, both cops are innocent).
- In one of Max Allan Collins's early strips (the final "Big Boy" continuity), someone points to one cop's extravagant lifestyle when they are looking for a mole inside the Organized Crime Unit. Tracy agrees that it is suspicious, but far from conclusive.
- Pondus: Lampshaded concerning recurring background character the clown-masked bank robber. Pondus points out the robber has been robbing banks for decades and has never been caught, partially because he defies this trope by not spending in extravagant ways that raise attention. The bank robber is Jokke's father, and he's very careful to spread his takes out for as long as possible and only spends in small, unobtrusive ways (like on some extra groceries or an occasional pub visit) to supplement his public pension. While a scrutiny of his cash flow over several years would probably reveal he's spending beyond his means, his day-to-day life is still spent way below the poverty line.
Theatre
- In Fiorello!, the song "Little Tin Box" invokes frugality as an excuse for the suspicious spending uncovered by Judge Seabury's investigations into municipal corruption.
Video Games
- ANNO: Mutationem: At the end of the Mysterious Console DLC, when explaining the circumstances that led to Noni being trapped within the device, Yuko notes some suspicion on how Noni's parents were somehow able to obtain the titular device at $30 million despite being an architect and surgeon, with Ayane figuring an Anonymous Benefactor was involved with them.
- Assassin's Creed: Mirage: One of the Order is a merchant spending a ridiculous amount of time and effort to get a rare hairpin, which is what draws the Hidden Ones to her. A note found in her lair has a note from the head of the Order cautioning her to dial it down so no one would notice, a note she has quite obviously ignored.
- In Dragon Age II, the guard who allowed a Qunari delegate to be captured by fanatics is quickly spotted since he's buying expensive alcohol far beyond a city guard's salary. He's also openly boasting about what he did, since he believes — with good reason — that he acted on behalf of the Chantry.
- The Elder Scrolls:
- In Oblivion, a suspected corrupt police captain has items in his office that could not have been purchased merely on his own salary. The implication (later proved to be true, if the player has him arrested rather than killed) is that he is imposing outrageous fines on the city folk in order to bankroll his spending, including a large home for himself and his family for when he retires.
- In Skyrim, at a certain point in the Thieves Guild questline, the rest of the Guild doesn't initially believe the claims made by the Dragonborn and Karliah that Guildmaster Mercer Frey is corrupt (even among thieves) despite the obvious fact that Frey manages to live a lavish and expensive lifestyle while they have to squat in a sewer and barely scratch out a living under what's assumed to be some bad luck. But then they check the vault where every coin and jewel they've ever stolen is stored... and discover it's been emptied out. Truth is, Mercer's been dipping his hands directly into the Guild's count of coin for years, using the Skeleton Key, a Daedric artifact that he stole from the Twilight Sepulcher, which also caused the Guild's stretch of bad luck due to patron "goddess" Nocturnal's displeasure.
- In the first Lostbelt of Fate/Grand Order, Patxi is suspected by his fellow villagers and Ivan the Terrible's enforcers of receiving food from the rebel army after he shows up with a large amount of food that he couldn't have acquired from any of the known hunting locations. What actually happened was that Chaldea told him about additional hunting spots in return for him explaining the local situation, but since Chaldea is also an enemy of Ivan, he still assisted enemies of the state.
- Final Fantasy XIV: On learning of Imperial activity that suggests a traitor in Gridania's ranks, tavernkeeper Buscarron quickly figures out it's a regular of his from the Wood Wailers. Having been a former Wood Wailer himself, Buscarron knows what the pay is like, so when a man who's normally sipping one pint because he can't afford a second suddenly starts buying top-shelf drinks, Buscarron has reason to wonder where he got the gil for it.
- Grand Theft Auto:
- One of the missions for the Italian Mafia in Grand Theft Auto III is a slightly atypical example of this trope. A bartender working for a made man is suspected of leaking information to the Columbian Cartel, who have been showing a remarkable amount of foreknowledge of Mafia movements. The bartender is a suspect because he is spending more than the Mafia is paying him, and because he is not pimping women or selling drugs, which would account for the discrepancy.
- Fridge Logic sets in when you wonder how the Don knew he wasn't doing either of those things: the Mafia probably would have taxed him if they found out he was making money in such a fashion, which could be an incentive to keep his mouth shut about it. Although it would have been a problem in its own way, untaxed criminal activity probably would have explained the extra money. The point is partially moot. He was indeed selling out his bosses. He was, however, paid in drugs, which would not have accounted for the extra money unless he was selling them secretly.
- Big Smoke from Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas moved out from Grove Street to a nicer house in Idlewood. He claims that he got money from his aunt. He is later revealed to be a crack dealer and that's where he got the money.
- Brucie Kibbutz from Grand Theft Auto IV is stated, in his police record, to be spending money more freely than his declared taxable income should allow.
- Max Payne's confrontation with B.B. in the first game is all over this trope.
Max Payne: The garage was dead. B.B. showed up in his tailor-made suit, gold watch, and cufflinks to match. All way beyond a cop's pay.
B.B.: Maxey...
Max Payne: Oozing suave charm, he was guilty as hell.- Fortunately, Max can be forgiven for not noticing B.B. was corrupt before; he never interacted with him, except via phone.
- Fort Schmerzen from Medal of Honor (1999) guards an unimportant stretch of the Siegfried Line yet men and resources are poured into its defense. Soon enough, Patterson discovers that its a mustard gas factory.
- This is something you can succumb to in Papers, Please if you choose to keep the Order of the Ezic Star's bribe for aiding them instead of burning it; being a lowly border guard in an 80s Communist dictatorship, your regular pay is beyond abysmal, so your neighbours — who are implied to be ideological party hardliners — will grow suspicious of your sudden wealth and report you to the Secret Police. This presents the only worthwhile use of upgrading to a more expensive apartment: doing so with the bribe, waiting for the money to be seized, and then downgrading back to your original class-8 apartment allows you to recoup a little of the money suspicion-free.
- In the third arc of Persona 5, Ryuji notes a member of the protagonist's class is doing this, stating they had gotten a "really great job" and began spending money left and right. Turns out that he had been approached by Junya Kaneshiro's men in Shibuya, and is being blackmailed into silence about his job — drug trafficking. If he tries to approach the police about this, Kaneshiro's men will release pictures of him with the drugs.
- A file found in the original Resident Evil 2 discusses how Raccoon City Police Chief Brian Irons has a habit of buying art that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars, well out of the range of what he could afford. He's being paid off by Umbrella.
- The Boss blunders this way in Saints Row 2. In the course of trying to retake Stilwater from the gang called the Ronin, a Yakuza faction trying to make their way in America, the Saints shoot up their money-making casino and make off with a heap of cash. Despite the wise plan to launder the money, it's done in the same unsubtle manner that the Ronin are able to track them down. Unfortunately, they swiftly retaliate by murdering Johnny's girlfriend.
- During the Smuggler Storyline of Star Wars: The Old Republic, you run into a Republic spy on Balmorra who got busted for buying customized speeders beyond his salary.
- w0rd 0N 7h3 S7R337: Salty and the Cowboy have bought a brand-new dune buggy and had a statue of themselves built at the school, which makes it pretty easy to figure out that they were the ones who robbed the Burger Herder. The hard part is gathering enough evidence to prove them guilty.
- In Yakuza 4, Tanimura figures out that the dirty cop he's looking for is Sugiuchi by the fact that he wears an extraordinarily expensive watch and shoes.
Western Animation
- 12 oz. Mouse: In the pilot episode, Fitz and Skillet rob a bank and go drinking. Peanut notes, "Those are the expensive beers. You must have pretty jobs to afford those beers." This leads Fitz to realize that he needs a job to cover for the fact that he robs banks.
- American Dad!: In "Meter Made", Stan is forced to be a meter maid as community service for beating one up, and starts embezzling quarters from parking meters and spending lavishly. He and Francine end up destroying everything they bought when a detective from Parking Internal Affairs appears to be onto them, only for it to turn out that the detective had only come to the house to tell Stan that his community service was over, and that he had considered Stan above suspicion due to his being a CIA agent.
- Batman: The Animated Series: In the episode "Joker's Millions", The Joker inherits a huge sum of money. He gets released from Arkham when a psychiatrist pronounces him cured; the psychiatrist is seen indignantly denying that he was bribed... then getting into a new car with an attractive woman half his age.
- The Fairly OddParents!: Timmy is constantly showing up with stuff his fairy godparents got him through magic. His usual answer when asked how he got the stuff is, "Internet?". Then there's the season 3 episode "Inspection Detection", where he's suspected of shoplifting for this very reason. He then manages to catch the real shoplifter using a camera he wished for, leading his parents to stop questioning his excuse, even if they don't seem to believe it.
- Scooby-Doo:
- The New Scooby-Doo Movies: In the episode "The Secret of Shark Island", Hidalgo figures out that the crooks are illegally salvaging treasure when one of them spends some gold coins in town.
- What's New, Scooby-Doo?: During 3-D Struction, Daphne found it strange for Heather to dress so well for a person employed for free. It turns out that Heather was one of the culprits in the attacks and a gold smuggler.
- The Simpsons: Happens from time to time, generally with Homer (or occasionally Bart) earning money in a shady way and Marge and/or Lisa being suspicious when they use the money to buy extravagant presents for the family:
- In "Lisa the Greek", Homer enlists Lisa to help him bet on football games, and Marge gets suspicious about the extra money he's been spending.
- In "The Canine Mutiny", Bart uses the credit card he got in the dog's name (it makes sense in context) to buy a lot of expensive stuff, which makes Lisa suspicious.
- The page image comes from "Homer Goes to College", where Mayor Quimby is bribed by Mr. Burns to stop the power plant from being shut down after it failed a safety test. Cue Quimby telling the safety inspectors that the plant is safe, while wearing a fur coat that he bought with his bribe.
Real Life
- In 1989, a bank in Noel, Missouri, was robbed of $70,000 in the middle of the night, and the bank's president Dan Short had gone missing. While it was originally surmised that Short had stolen the money himself so he could disappear and start a new life (he was having marital problems with his wife), this theory was disproved when his body was found floating in a lake five days later. While searching for suspects, police were informed of two brothers, Joe and Shannon Agofsky, who were spending large amounts of money on things like new cars and a trip to Disneyland despite being unemployed. After further investigation, it was eventually determined that the brothers had forced Short to help them rob the bank, then killed him by tying him to a chair and tossing him into the Elk River, where he drowned.
- Aldrich Ames was a Soviet mole in the U.S. government, who lived a particularly extravagant lifestyle, which was only seen as suspicious in retrospect. Everybody believed him when he said his Colombian wife came from money when she didn't. For a guy with a $60,000 annual salary, Aldrich Ames was somehow able to afford tailor-made suits that not even his superiors could afford, a $540,000 house in Arlington, Virginia, paid for in cash; a $50,000 Jaguar luxury car; home remodeling and redecoration costs of $99,000; monthly phone bills exceeding $6,000 (mostly calls by Ames' wife to her family in Colombia); and premium credit cards whose minimum monthly payment exceeded his monthly salary.
- Al Capone's downfall is the stuff of legends. While the government couldn't prove that the millions of dollars he spent on entertainment alone (far more than he earned in his official job as a hotelier) every year was earned illegally, they could prove that he hadn't paid taxes on it.
- A major reason for the arrest of the Menendez Brothers, who spent the months after their parents' murders living large, spending $700,000 in under a year. It also ended up being a major reason they both received life without parole, as while their father had been severely abusive (which might have allowed them to be convicted on a lesser charge on the grounds of self-defense), the fact that they were so happy to blow their cash convinced the jury that their real motive was to get his money.
- In 2013, the NCAA investigated college basketball player Shabazz Muhammad after he was seen wearing an expensive Gucci backpack (Shabazz had already been suspended previously for receiving benefits not allowed under NCAA rules). He was eventually cleared when it was proven that the backpack was a gift from family members.
- In one case, a Rhode Island man Gregory Rosa was arrested under suspicion of breaking into vending machines to steal money from them. It definitely didn't help his case when he attempted to make bail using nothing but quarters.
- In Canada, some divorced people who owe spousal support or child support claim to have no income (which means they cannot pay support), yet they live a luxurious lifestyle. The government can impute an estimated income for the support-paying parent, based on their lifestyle (e.g., owning luxury cars, living in a Big Fancy House, owning a yacht).
- In France, laws punish those without visible means to gain their livelihood who are consorting with persons involved in drug trafficking, prostitution, or terrorism. In cases where the declared income is vastly inferior to the real expenses, another disposition allows taxmen to calculate an imputed income based on expenses such as memberships at golf clubs and hunting lodges, rent for housing, among other clues, which allow the estimation of a person's income.
- In 2017, the UK devised the Unexplained Wealth Order, where suspicious spenders can have assets seized unless they can account for where the money came from (London is renowned for being a hub for both legitimate finance and dubious money laundering). The first person hit with such an order (the wife of an Azeri banker) had to explain how she could afford a £15m home and a golf course, while another businessman with links to a convicted murderer was forced to give up 45 properties.