A Chilean man became an overnight millionaire, all thanks to an old passbook. Exequiel Hinojosa was sorting through his late father’s belongings ten years after his death when he came across a six-decade-old bank passbook, which changed his fortune forever. The story was initially reported by Reuters back in 2022, and it has now gone viral again.Hinojosa’s father was saving up to buy a house in the 1960s-70s. The viral picture of the passbook showed that the old man had saved 140,000 pesos, about $163 now. With interest and inflation, Exequiel received more than one billion pesos, or over $1.2 million (₹10 crore).
Nobody in the family knew about his father’s specific bank account and savings, and the book remained stored away in a box for decades. Exequiel found the passbook among his father’s belongings while cleaning the house.
He then planned to withdraw the money but discovered that his father’s bank had shut down long ago. And it looked like the passbook was useless and the money was gone. However, Hinojosa found an annotation reading ‘state guaranteed,’ which indicated that the government would take control if the bank couldn’t make payments.But the Chilean government refused to honour it, leading to a long legal battle to the Supreme Court. “That money is our family’s. He saved it by working really hard,” Hinojosa said. He further mentioned that the family didn’t even know the bankbook existed until they discovered it. “I never thought this process would turn into a kind of lawsuit towards the state,” he said.
Nobody in the family knew about his father’s specific bank account and savings, and the book remained stored away in a box for decades. Exequiel found the passbook among his father’s belongings while cleaning the house.
He then planned to withdraw the money but discovered that his father’s bank had shut down long ago. And it looked like the passbook was useless and the money was gone. However, Hinojosa found an annotation reading ‘state guaranteed,’ which indicated that the government would take control if the bank couldn’t make payments.But the Chilean government refused to honour it, leading to a long legal battle to the Supreme Court. “That money is our family’s. He saved it by working really hard,” Hinojosa said. He further mentioned that the family didn’t even know the bankbook existed until they discovered it. “I never thought this process would turn into a kind of lawsuit towards the state,” he said.
Despite multiple courts’ rulings in favour of Hinojosa, the government has appealed every step of the way. “If the justice system, the Supreme Court, and the court of appeals rule in my favour, all that’s left to fix the problem is paying what is due, nothing more, nothing less,” he said.
Finally, in 2022, the Chile Supreme Court ordered the government to compensate him with 1 billion Chilean Pesos (about ₹10 crore), including interest and allowances.
(Edited by : Sudarsanan Mani)
