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German buys Cabinet with 2.5Kg of Gold Bars Hidden inside


AUS-97HORN

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He turned it in to the police and will get a $2,900 finder fee..... 

 

d2789a4ddb43f4d0ea1a1af191856c574de07c2d

but man, thats about $96,700 worth of gold at todays gold price per gram. 

I get the idea of doing the right thing.... but I dont think there is any chance in hell of me turning in 2.5 kg worth of obviously hidden gold bars to the cops.

I realize the gold could have been stolen and since it was bars, it would be easy to identify if stolen, but I would have taken my chances and bought a damn smelter to melt the gold into smaller "homemade" nuggets that I would have sold off to gold buyers telling them I collect old broken gold jewelry and melt it myself.  Sell a small nugget of ~100 grams every 3-4 months to 3-4 diff gold buyers in my city.   Would take about 3 years to turn it all into tax-free cash.

 

https://www.thelocal.de/20180920/treasure

 

 

 

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12 minutes ago, AUS-97HORN said:

He turned it in to the police and will get a $2,900 finder fee..... 

 

d2789a4ddb43f4d0ea1a1af191856c574de07c2d

but man, thats about $96,700 worth of gold at todays gold price per gram. 

I get the idea of doing the right thing.... but I dont think there is any chance in hell of me turning in 2.5 kg worth of obviously hidden gold bars to the cops.

I realize the gold could have been stolen and since it was bars, it would be easy to identify if stolen, but I would have taken my chances and bought a damn smelter to melt the gold into smaller "homemade" nuggets that I would have sold off to gold buyers telling them I collect old broken gold jewelry and melt it myself.  Sell a small nugget of ~100 grams every 3-4 months to 3-4 diff gold buyers in my city.   Would take about 3 years to turn it all into tax-free cash.

 

https://www.thelocal.de/20180920/treasure

 

 

 

'Apple Watching You' thread seems apropos.  

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I just listened to a true crime podcast about the guy in NY who left in his basement after he sold his house the barrel with his dead mistress and their child in it. I think I would have been more likely to take that than my gold bars. I would assume the bars came with the cabinet.

Edited by Kyle
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On 9/24/2018 at 2:07 PM, gsoda3 said:

let's say you melt it down and sell it but then get caught-  what are the consequences?

About all they can get you for (assuming you melt it and they don’t somehow track it back to a crime which would open all sorts of possibilities) would be money laundering and possibly tax evasion.

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About all they can get you for (assuming you melt it and they don’t somehow track it back to a crime which would open all sorts of possibilities) would be money laundering and possibly tax evasion.
Many states in the US have a "lost and found" statute that makes it a crime to not report "abandoned property". Not sure whether it would apply under these facts but it'd be the starting place for my local prosecutors.

No idea what the law in Germany is though.

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28 minutes ago, bigshark88 said:

Many states in the US have a "lost and found" statute that makes it a crime to not report "abandoned property". Not sure whether it would apply under these facts but it'd be the starting place for my local prosecutors.

No idea what the law in Germany is though.

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Yeah like I said, if you melted it down they really couldn’t get you on the lost and found law, larceny, or any other crime laws that could bring you down like RICO or local STEP (California) like laws because there would be no way to prove it, unless it was some rare form of gold or gold tainted with a isotopic marker of some kind (basically just super rare shit you see in movies and tv shows) and even then it would have to be known to the authorities somehow and they would also have to know of your gold.  So unless they can somehow identify the gold after you melted it down you’re pretty safe.  They’d have to come up with a plausible reason to get you for money laundering or prove you been selling it without claiming your profits on your tax returns for tax fraud.

If I found it, my ass would start buying a couple thousand dollars worth of gold each year from different local buyers and then after 8-10 years or so I’d start selling my stuff back to them and claiming the profits on my taxes.  If the IRS ever came looking I’d have some receipts showing I was a collector and claim I’ve been doing this since I got out of school but obviously those receipts are long gone and many of the local stores I’ve purchased from aren’t around anymore.  Plus there aren’t any required records on gold purchases other than those over 10k so there’s not much they could do to you at that point and the money would be essentially cleaned and free to spend for retirement, your kid’s college, or Caribbean sail boat.

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I completely agree. I scrolled up and quoted the wrong post actually.

One thing to consider: I represented owners of one of those gold buying shops years ago when the economy was down and they were everywhere. The second hand dealer gold shops are highly regulated by state statutes because they're basically perfect fence locations. Just something to think about. Not sure they'd be legally able to purchase gold you brought in the front door that just popped out of your egg sinker mold.

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53 minutes ago, bigshark88 said:

I completely agree. I scrolled up and quoted the wrong post actually.

One thing to consider: I represented owners of one of those gold buying shops years ago when the economy was down and they were everywhere. The second hand dealer gold shops are highly regulated by state statutes because they're basically perfect fence locations. Just something to think about. Not sure they'd be legally able to purchase gold you brought in the front door that just popped out of your egg sinker mold.

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Interesting.  I’ve never claimed to be an expert and I’m sure smarter people than me have figured this out and have figured out the best way to stop this, but as far as I know there is no law against buying or selling melted precious metals.   Maybe it’s a state by state, county by county law or regulation; but from what I’ve heard/read, less experienced gold buyers don’t like buying melted or raw gold because they don’t trust their own ability to accurately value gold with their equipment.  So they generally don’t like to buy gold that doesn’t have its purity stamped on it.  Add in the possibility of having to deal with law enforcement if it’s determined that it was acquired by less than legal means and I can understand why some may decline to buy.  Still, I’d bet most would probably just make you a shitty offer because getting a good deal on gold that’s going to be melted anyways would outweigh any risk of having to deal with the cops.

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On 9/24/2018 at 2:21 PM, AUS-97HORN said:

He turned it in to the police and will get a $2,900 finder fee..... 

 

d2789a4ddb43f4d0ea1a1af191856c574de07c2d

but man, thats about $96,700 worth of gold at todays gold price per gram. 

I get the idea of doing the right thing.... but I dont think there is any chance in hell of me turning in 2.5 kg worth of obviously hidden gold bars to the cops.

I realize the gold could have been stolen and since it was bars, it would be easy to identify if stolen, but I would have taken my chances and bought a damn smelter to melt the gold into smaller "homemade" nuggets that I would have sold off to gold buyers telling them I collect old broken gold jewelry and melt it myself.  Sell a small nugget of ~100 grams every 3-4 months to 3-4 diff gold buyers in my city.   Would take about 3 years to turn it all into tax-free cash.

 

https://www.thelocal.de/20180920/treasure

 

 

 

Zero chance I turn it in. Also zero chance that the serial numbers and logos are present when I sell them. I would have maybe waited a little while to see if the seller comes sniffing around. But is it even rightfully the sellers if he didnt put them there and didnt know they were in there anyway?

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Pic in the OP doesn't really show depth very well, so you can't tell the thickness of the 3 bars, but it seems odd that one bar has smaller dimensions than the other two, yet is from the same Mint and is stamped with the same 1000 which I presume is indicative of the weight (1000 grams per bar).  Article claims the three bars totaled 2.5 kg.  Either the small bar is mis-stamped or the article misstated the total weight.  

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13 hours ago, FondrenRoad said:

 I would have maybe waited a little while to see if the seller comes sniffing around. But is it even rightfully the sellers if he didnt put them there and didnt know they were in there anyway?

My main worry would that the seller would come around but I would never know it, because he'd put a bullet in the back of my head while I sleep. 

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7 hours ago, bernorange said:

 it seems odd that one bar has smaller dimensions than the other two, yet is from the same Mint and is stamped with the same 1000 which I presume is indicative of the weight (1000 grams per bar).  Article claims the three bars totaled 2.5 kg.  Either the small bar is mis-stamped or the article misstated the total weight.  

1000 may refer to purity, not mass/weight. Lots of bars are stamped 999.9 pure. Maybe they were into rounding back whenever these bars were made. 

Bernard

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We own acreage with a creek running through it, and I’ve successfully  panned gold ther. What harm is a little exaggeration when it comes to how much I’ve found?  One gram, one kilogram, whatever. I’ve got this covered.

I do remember a story from the 70s or 80s where an old jeweler collected the dust from on and around his work bench. He separated the gold dust and flecks from the regular dust, and by the time he retired, he had gold worth many thousands. /csb 

Edited by ImissWallyPryor
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7 hours ago, ImissWallyPryor said:

...

I do remember a story from the 70s or 80s where an old jeweler collected the dust from on and around his work bench. He separated the gold dust and flecks from the regular dust, and by the time he retired, he had gold worth many thousands. /csb 

https://nypost.com/2011/06/20/got-his-mined-in-the-gutter/

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On 9/28/2018 at 12:42 AM, ImissWallyPryor said:

We own acreage with a creek running through it, and I’ve successfully  panned gold ther. What harm is a little exaggeration when it comes to how much I’ve found?  One gram, one kilogram, whatever. I’ve got this covered.

I do remember a story from the 70s or 80s where an old jeweler collected the dust from on and around his work bench. He separated the gold dust and flecks from the regular dust, and by the time he retired, he had gold worth many thousands. /csb 

Lee Marvin and Clint Eastwood?

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