Posted on 02/16/2011 10:40:39 PM PST by Jet Jaguar
A Chilliwack man says he is traumatized after he was punched, stabbed and tied up by home-invading thieves who made off with his life savings in silver bars.
The two thugs, wearing what he described as fake police uniforms, unloaded a vault and spirited away with $750,000 in silver the man had bought as an investment last year.
The 52-year-old victim, still shaking after the robbery at his Imperial Street home on Feb. 9, now wonders who among his friends or acquaintances is behind the brazen midday theft.
“Obviously some friend, or friend of a friend, or friend of a family member was told and they leaked it to the wrong people,” he said.
Due to the circumstances, the man’s name is being withheld by The Province.
The home invaders initially told the victim they were investigating a domestic assault, then said they were looking for methamphetamine in his vault. One carried a gun.
After punching him hard in the face and stabbing him with a kitchen knife, they forced him into providing the combination for his vault. That vault, about one metre deep and another metre wide, was stacked with what Chilliwack police describe as “several thousand ounces” of silver.
“It’s the bulk of my life savings,” said the man.
Silver has almost doubled in price in the last year, from $17 per ounce to just above $30.
“When I bought it in January a year ago some people said. ‘You are crazy,’” he said. “It turns out that it really was one of the best investments I’ve ever made.”
The man, a former professional, wouldn’t say how much he had paid for the bullion, though $750,000 in silver bullion was worth about $415,500 this time last year.
A bank refused to store the silver, he said, because it was too big.
“You could put $10 million in gold in a safe-deposit box, but silver is very bulky,” he said. “There’s no way that a bank would store that bulk.”
He didn’t insure the silver, he said, because the price to do so was astronomical.
Eddy Siu, a trader at Vancouver Bullion & Currency Exchange, said it’s not uncommon for people to stash investments in silver in their houses, storage units or warehouses due to its bulk. “It does happen,” he said.
Chilliwack RCMP Const. Tracy Wolbeck said police hope someone will come forward with tips.
“We are hopeful that given the time of day, someone saw something and can give us some helpful information,” Wolbeck said.
She said it’s likely the silver will be sold through precious metal dealers and converted to cash.
“I don’t know what quantity they would be able to off-load at a time but they do have shops and business in Vancouver that will buy it,” Wolbeck said.
The suspects are white, with a medium build, in their early 30s, with dark hair and some facial hair. They may have been in a white sedan, possibly a Toyota Camry or Pontiac G6.
Anyone with information is asked to call Chilliwack RCMP at 604-792-4611 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477.
Ping
Look for a white Toyota Camry or Pontiac G6 with busted shocks.
Loose lips sink ships. He shouldn’t have told anyone at all.
And..., one would expect such a transaction to be unnoticed???
At $30/ounce, $750,000 would be 25,000 ounces, or about 2000 pounds (assuming Troy ounces). The cop said it was “several thousand ounces”. Something doesn’t compute.
Groan. For this guy's sake, I hope the perps are found before they unload the silver.
I realize they can easily be melted down, but are silver bars marked in any way to distinguish one bar from another?
the silver is long gone, through the Vancouver underground,
possibly to Hong Kong by now.
maybe someone needed a little sil’, a little gol’ to
take to the hangman’s post...
I am very sorry about what happened to this man.
That said, it is not wise to keep your life savings all in one place. Obviously.
Lots of things could happen, wherever the one place is. You need to spread out a little. No where is perfectly safe.
$750,000 of silver would be in the neighborhood of 700 bars of silver (assuming 1 kilo per bar).
Kind of difficult to "spirit off" with 700 bars of silver.
True enough. I have taught my Grandchildren the number of people it takes to keep a secret.
One.
Any more than that, it isn't a secret.
I'd also advise folks to keep their nest eggs in more than one basket.
A couple hundred ounces in the vault, some in the base of the Ficus planter, etc...
All that said, I hope at least some of his silver is recovered and returned to him--and the perpetrators caught and appropriately punished.
Great point, is there any evidence he ever had this?
Back up a truck and load her up.
Whomever took them likely had a ready buyer who could restamp them and resell them on the market.
He should start by water boarding the most likely big mouth. ;-)
“I realize they can easily be melted down, but are silver bars marked in any way to distinguish one bar from another?”
Most are...
http://www.tulving.com/bullion/engelhard_silver_bullion_bars.htm
I would posit that very, very few private holders of bars mark down their serial numbers. They are “easy” (not really) to melt down but anyone who does so loses $50-$100 per bar assay charge converting it from a known item (eg; “Englehard 100 oz bar) to an unknown blob or block of silver.
There’s the dollar, the peso, the mark, the ruble, the pound and now “the blob”.
Ahahahahahhahahha I bet you don’t realize I know very well who Krankor is!
Early 80s blast from the past.....
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