Posted on 02/20/2023 3:41:12 PM PST by TigerClaws
If true then why would they hide it? It’s the Feds gold. They can do what they want with it.
Oh, fer sure you can trust the F. B. I…….. absolutely 👍
Hey...somebody has to pay for the new FBI headquarters....planned to be as large as the Pentagon.
Finder’s fee is millions. Legitimately
He never heard of the “shovel” then “shut-up” part of the equation.
If true, I have a hard time finding any sympathy for the idiots.
“Finders weepers, losers keepers”
I don’t know but I do know that if I had reason to believe the FBI had hundreds of millions in untraceable pure gold I’d be really curious why they wanted to keep it off the books. One might be tempted to consider the possibility that they had uses for it which might not be, shall we say, officially authorized by congress.
I don’t see in the story when this dig happened. If it’s there I can’t find it. If it isn’t this is terrible reporting.
Well you are correct that the article says he hoped for a finders fee. But I don’t think there is any legal requirement that they pay him one.
That is one thought I had…. Or in other words, someone other than the government has it in his garage. If that’s the case though then he’s suing the wrong people.
"... and they took it away in a secret overnight dig".
He should’ve dug it up:
If John and Mary had found the coins while taking a walk on someone else’s property, the booty would likely go to that landowner. But what if someone stumbles across something valuable on public property? Say a San Franciscan strolling across the Golden Gate Bridge finds a bag containing $1 million in cash. In California, there is a law mandating that any found property valued over $100 be turned over to police. Authorities must then wait 90 days, advertise the lost property for a week, and finally release it to the person who found it if no one could prove ownership. Orth says it’s rare for cities or states to make any claim to found property, like the goods that metal-detector-wielding treasure hunters find on public beaches, unless it has some historical or archeological significance.
https://time.com/10118/california-gold-coins-finders-keepers-john-mary/
Exactly.
He told the FBI? There’s a great video by a law professor on YouTube entitled “Do Not Talk to the Police”.
That’s true whether it’s a traffic stop or if you’re digging for gold.
For the curious, here’s that video.
So the FBI went to the courts and presented evidence that the gold belonged to the government and obtained a search warrant, and then eventually obtained the gold.
So what did the FBI do wrong?
There is no claim of ownership of the gold by the treasure hunter. Even if the gold was on private property, the search warrant entitles the FBI to enter and seize the gold. The FBI owes no explanation to the treasure hunter for it’s activities and or search methods or even the disposition of the gold after being seized.
Am I missing something?
Well of course they did. When you find a treasure cache you dig it up and keep quiet about it.
I don’t think he has a legal case, but his story is plausible enough that if I were the FBI I would be suspicious that someone at the FBI got his buddies together and stole it. I would want to check it out.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.