The new Bond movie, Spectre, is brazen in its product placement, with brands such as Aston Martin, Belvedere, and Tom Ford starring in the film alongside actor Daniel Craig. But in the real world, that kind of conspicuous consumption could draw unwanted attention to an agent on a mission. That’s the idea behind the 1M Hauly Heist, a bag specifically designed for transporting $1 million in cash—discreetly.
Designed by SDR Traveller, a brand that focuses on inconspicuous travel, the Hauly is a radio frequency (RF) shielding pouch that costs $720, which shouldn’t faze a person with a cool million in their carry-on.
SDR Traveller created the Hauly and other products for its affiliate consulting firm, Studio D Radiondurans. Studio D was founded by design researcher Jan Chipchase, with the Bond-villains-meet-Monocle mission to offer ”discreet international research, design and strategy services to multinational clients with a global remit.”
“We’re a little coy about the testing of the money bags and the Haulys,” an SDR representative wrote in an email to Quartz. ”Suffice to say that they’ve been with us, in-field, in all the situations that you might imagine…[The bags] were originally designed for field work, and a specific client/project.”
One of the factors considered in designing the money bags included “glide,” as in, “the extent to which a full or partially full bag will slide across a marble floor,” they said. It’s the worst when you slide a bag of cash to your nemesis across the foyer, only to watch it get stuck in the middle. Who’s going to walk to get it? I got it? You got it?
Also, “bounce.” This is the pesky problem of used bills taking up more space than crisp, new dollars: With new bills, it seems, you can fit stacks on stacks on stacks. But with used bills, you can only fit stacks on stacks. The Hauly pouch solves that by accommodating up to $1 million USD in used bills.
Finally, RF-shielding. “If you don’t want to be tracked, don’t carry any electronics,” SDR advises. To further minimize that risk, the Hauly Heist’s external Faraday pouch limits the ability of electronics inside—whether a laptop computer or a tracking device implanted in a bundle of banknotes—to connect to networks.
The Hauly also comes with an optional accounting kit that includes 20 sleeves for holding $100,000 each, 10 transparent, tamper-evident pouches with peel-off receipts, and an allegedly monsoon-proof permanent marker.
It seems like a reasonably discreet way to transport a million dollars, so long as you can resist the urge to Instagram the moment.