Gold Bar Worth $500K Stolen From Key West Museum

Well, when you leave half a mill laying around... IMO your asking for trouble.

 

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The box is skinnier and shorter than the bar so it is not possible to turn it in a manner that would let it line up with the hole, Mel might have been a bit shady but he certainly wasn't a fool. I also met him years ago before the "big" one and he was a very likable man but I counted my fingers after shaking hands with him.

 

lol

Well I'm sure his insurance paid well. But I too hope they find the bar and those who did this.

 

$500,000/74.85 oz = $6,680.00 per oz. nice premium.

 

Perhaps these guys who stole the gold bar from the Mel Fisher museum were inspired by this heist:




In 2007, a small group of thieves overpowered the minimal staff on premises at the Takayama Museum in central Japan. This gold was on display in the container pictured above, which allowed visitors to touch the bullion. There were no sensors or burglar alarms because it was an interactive display. The thieves were captured on video surveillance removing the gold and leaving the building but there were no other security measures in place to prevent them from literally dragging this 100 kilogram (220 lbs.) block of gold off the pedestal, out of the museum and into their get-away car. BBC link

The get-away car was discovered some days after the theft and a small amount of this gold was recovered as they were trying to reduce and disguise the gold into smaller amounts. At least one of the guys was caught but I haven't followed the news on the rest of the story.

Incidentally, the brick was originally shaped/poured by the Mitsubishi Corporation in Japan and acquired by the museum in 1994.

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It seems to be the most typical procedure of bullion thieves to destroy/hide the stolen metal by recasting it into other forms then distributing it as far and wide as they can to make it disappear into the global gold supply. The same was thought to have occurred with most of the bullion taken in the Brinks Mat robbery at Heathrow Airport in England, 1983. Very little was ever recovered from that heist.


Now, if I were the Director of the Jinguashi Gold Ecological Park Museum in Taiwan I would be doing everything I could to secure this giant 220 kg gold brick which allows it's visitors to "interact" with their bullion:











Lastly, there is yet another monster block of gold lurking out there... I'm just not sure where or if this one is kept on public display like those mentioned above:



A 551.15 lbs. gold brick made by the Mitsubishi Corporation in Japan.

 

I've held that gold bar! (While it was still in the case, of course haha)

 

I hope whoever stole the 220 lb block buries it and I find it with my metal detector !!!

 

Well that would be something to find detecting but it's stolen property so you'd have to hope for some reward money to go buy yourself some bullion of your own with, probably far less than 220 lb worth.

 

i just watched this "fools gold" movie tonight and was very similar(other then the action and guns) to something i have heard about? anyone know if that movie was BASED or even partially based on mel? its just weird a treasure hunter looking for Spanish treasure in that part of the world, who can swindle people for money..

either way that girl(not kate hudson, but she is fine as well) is so good looking in that movie, definitely made it worth the time.

 

Yep or dig out a torch and start smelting.

 

thats a whole big enough for the bar to get threw..lol..nretards

 

But then smelting the evidence yourself makes you complicit with the theft. I'll take the reward money and be happy with that.

 

The depth is much shallower inside the case to prevent rotating the bar to the position it would need to extract cleanly. Curious to hear if the thieves actually extracted the bar from the hand hole or needed to damage the case (or the bar) to remove it.

 

judging by the the above pics...how easy it would be to break it out (esp. using the hole) I wouldnt be supprised to hear later it was an inside job/...but wouldnt the local cops say that or the muesum recognize them and realese it to the press?

 

500,000 for 90k worth of gold!! thats the real ripoff.

 

More about this story from CNN.com with surveillance video of the theft!

Finding stolen piece of history may not be easy task from CNN.com 8/25/2010

 

I stole it! It is in my world-famous vaults with the Extra security that are SWAT trained and we even have are own 911 number!

 

what i don't get how it isn't chipped to hell, sorta like people did with the liberty bell? i am sure the light bulb has gone off in quite a few heads that seen it, thinking about shaving some chunks off.

 

Once it's a blob, where's the evidence ? I don't think Gold has DNA ?

 

Of course it doesn't have dna, wasn't my point. That's how PMs have disappeared throughout history. My point was about conscience and responsibility.