Chinese petrol station worker buys 680,000-yuan car … with a massive stash of coins

A petrol station employee in northeastern China surprised a car dealership recently when he bought an SUV with 660,000 yuan worth of coins, state media reported.

The man, who only gave his surname as Gan, called a salesman at a car dealership in Shenyang on Monday in Liaoning province, saying he wanted to buy a Toyota SUV in cash.

But Gan added: “My 660,000 yuan [HK$835,000] are all in one-yuan coins and I have another 20,000 yuan in one yuan banknotes.”

Gan said many clients at his petrol station were the city’s bus drivers, who pay in one-yuan coins when they come to refuel their vehicles.

“The fare [that] bus companies collected are all one-yuan coins and they used that money to pay us,” Gan told the Peninsula Morning News, a state-run newspaper in the province.