Speculation

Exhaustion is speculation, safe and risk-free, consisting of obtaining excessive profit by exchanging paper money for cash, all taking advantage of price fluctuations.

Explained in another way, exhaustion occurs when someone buys promissory notes, bills or public or private obligations with the aim of reselling them taking advantage of the fact that their price has risen. Of course, as long as this person knows for sure, for example, with privileged information, that this situation is going to occur.

This concept should not lead to confusion with speculation. Speculating carries future risk, as we don't know for sure how prices will swing. However, this type of operation requires two conditions, that they are safe and that they lack risk. In this way, they end up harming a third party and even the general public.

Origin of exhaustion

This word comes from agio, which in turn has its origin in the Italian word aggio or added. Agio refers to the benefits obtained by exchanging currencies or discounting promissory notes. Another of its meanings is, precisely, monetary speculation with price variations and by extension, the one that has an abusive character, which is called exhaustion.

The agiotador, at first, was just a broker who exchanged money for bills or promissory notes and thus, contributed to financing the public treasury. However, a belief began to develop about the possibility of using bad arts to obtain inside information. This led many governments to consider this type of operation a crime and to prohibit it.

Case examples

There are many cases of exhaustion in the world. We have compiled some more relevant examples that have appeared in the international press.

• In Honduras a case broke out in which a merchant was accused of exhaustion. He was accused of selling basic food products at prices much higher than those previously set by the authority.
• In 2016 Terpel (Colombia) was accused of the same crime. The company was sued for fraudulent maneuvers to modify prices. They pleaded not guilty and in turn warned of the initiation of legal actions to wash their good name.
• In 2019, in Colombia, there was a case of reselling tickets for the soccer team. there were price increases of up to 200%. The case reached the prosecution that accused two of the participants of exhaustion.