Cardboard boxes and $56 million in cash may add up to the biggest tax-dodge ever reported in Japanese history.

Sisters Yoshiko Ishii and Hatsue Shimizu of Osaka, Japan were recently arrested under suspicion of hiding a stash (is $56 million still considered a “stash?”) of yen they’d inherited from their father, owner of a prominent real estate investment company.

It was bad enough that they began withdrawing money from their father’s bank accounts years before he’d passed away, but they’d only declared a portion of their eventual inheritance and paid a sliver of the owed tax.

How the government failed to realize that nearly $56 million in business funds virtually dropped off the radar screen is still up for debate.

Under questioning from prosecutors, Ishii admitted to the allegations, while her older sister claimed she’d forgotten about the cash, most of which was socked away in her cramped garage.

Forgot? Yeah, right. We can only imagine how that interview went: “Oh, that $56 million in cash, next to the old freezer, pile of laundry and fourteen brand-new luxury cars … now I remember.”

Tags: fraud, storage, tax scheme