FBI arrests CIA official with $40M in gold bars in his home

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/27/us/politics/fbi-arrest-cia-official-gold-bars.html

by cwwc • 2 months ago

472 392 2 months ago

nytimes.com

AmazingEveryDay• 2 months ago

This seems absolutely crazy. Probably Fort Knox should be inventoried, might indeed not be anything there!

yieldcrv3• 2 months ago

This is different than that and scant on pertinent details

It says he received it as compensation for expenses, not that it was ever in some government vault. This is additional gold and foreign currency that an agency had, not the reserve.

It then says

When the C.I.A. conducted a review of where the gold and currency were stashed

Why would they do that if it was compensation for expenses

He wasn't charged for that, and the phrasing doesn't suggest it was supposed to be remitted to the government

if the CIA didn't have a history of being involved in shady shit like this that already explains everything, this would be weird

instead it looks like he's got burned over his necessary use of fibbed identity

root_axis• 2 months ago

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...

Tangurena210• 2 months ago

Fort Knox doesn't store gold bars that small. A 1kg gold bar is about the size of a cellphone. The ones at Fort Knox are the large trade bars, which weigh about 400 ounces (or 12.4 Kg).

Size of a standard gold bar: 7 inches x 3 and 5/8 inches x 1 and 3/4 inches.
Weight of a standard gold bar: approximately 400 ounces or 27.5 pounds.

https://www.usmint.gov/about/tours-and-locations/fort-knox

sleepyguy• 2 months ago

Sounds like he was most likely involved in some serious shit that was off the books and somehow it came to light. His boss is probably aware of what it was but no one will admit shit. It went awry and he is left holding the bag.

Gold and money for an operation that could have been to anything from funding armed rebellion to god only knows.

asdff2• 2 months ago

$40m+ in an expense account based in gold bars is absolutely crazy. CIA agents must have access to untold resources if this is seen as a somewhat regular 4 month spend. Seems it is, given that they seemingly weren't concerned about the $40+ million being taken out, but where it was being held.

coliveira• 2 months ago

The "resources" are off the books, it must be just the tip of the iceberg.

sneak2• 2 months ago

$40M is a trivial amount of money to everyone involved in this matter. It’s only a few hundred 1kg bars.

simulator5g2• 2 months ago

You're thinking in pre-covid peasant dollars. $40m isn't that much anymore, and frankly never was to these people.

fn-mote• 2 months ago

I thought this was baseless speculation, but from TFA:

[he] asked for, and received, “a significant quantity of foreign currency and tens of millions of dollars in gold bars for work-related expenses.

golem142• 2 months ago

Yeah, this reads like right out of "Burn notice".

toyg• 2 months ago

Or, someone decided they wanted to redirect the flow of black money through someone else, but couldn't do it internally for some reason; so they called in their FBI friends to make a ruckus. While the guy is busy defending himself, they have an excuse to pick someone else to receive the new stream of gold.

simpaticoder• 2 months ago

So what is that, like 10 gold bars?

EDIT: it's 240. but still, they were worth a lot less not that long ago...

mlmonkey2• 2 months ago

According to the article, 303 gold bars worth about $40M.

mlmonkey2• 2 months ago

Gold is the "bitcoin" of yesterday, in the sense that it is untraceable, anonymous and yet high value enough to be worth it.

And it can be made to disappear in a hurry, if you have to: https://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2011/10/03/140815154/d...

ozgrakkurt• 2 months ago

None of those points match bitcoin. What you are describing is more like tornado cash or similar stuff which are really really banned when interfacing with banks or similar institutions.

rafram• 2 months ago

untraceable, anonymous and yet high value enough to be worth it

Literally none of these is true of Bitcoin.

akimbostrawman• 2 months ago

Btc is neither fungible, untraceable or private. The only actual currency which is comparable to gold is monero xmr.

contingencies• 2 months ago

CIA: Corruption Institute of America

paradoxyl2• 2 months ago

Its nickname since the 1970s has been Criminals in Action, when they were smuggling heroin out of the Golden Triangle to fund covert actions during the Vietnam War.

hnthrowaway03154• 2 months ago

Maybe this is part of the shadow money. CIA has been working with business people since the beginning of Cold War and I wouldn't be surprised that they have deep roots in the financial world -- after all both Intelligence and Finance need globalization.

JumpCrisscross4• 2 months ago

It’s almost certainly grift. If it were official, the arrest would have been scrubbed.

electroglyph• 2 months ago

sometimes i wonder if the left hand knows what the right is doing. it looks like we arrested our own spy in this case: https://www.politico.com/news/2026/05/25/american-journalist...

moralestapia• 2 months ago

I don't think it's connected to this specific event, but there's a lot of lore about the CIA moving gold in/out of Afghanistan, Iraq and others during war time.

hnthrowaway03154• 2 months ago

I used to read a lot about Michele Sindona who was supposed to be connected to the Mafia and the intelligence community. His currency trading firm was one of the first to trade the Eurodollar contracts back in the 60s, IIRC.

I think intelligence and finance really go hand in hand. It makes so much sense -- you see, the intelligence community really hates the congress or whatever to snoop around its operations before approving the budget -- wouldn't it a lot easier to just earn your own $$? And with all the information the intelligence agencies control, it is almost trivial to make quick money in finance. Last but not the least, wouldn't banker be the perfect cover for spies? They wear nice suites, too.

themafia2• 2 months ago

They want globalization to make their jobs easier. In no sense do they "need" it. Whether we want a world where the desires of intelligence and finance are blindly prioritized is an open question. For my part the answer is obviously no.

hnthrowaway03154• 2 months ago

I think most ordinary people would say No, but most of us do not have a say in any important things. They put up the facade of voting while all the important stuffs are decided within the circles.

I think it really makes sense to consider ourselves to be just intelligent cattle -- they still tolerate us because they need us to turn natural resources into machinery, weapon, insights and other stuffs they need, but once AI and robots keep up, they can probably get rid of 90% of us.

paradoxyl2• 2 months ago

The cover of national security has allowed a certain type of organized crime to proliferate to the point it's breaking society.

thrownthatway2• 2 months ago

Son: dad, I’m thinking of getting in to organised crime

Dad: Public or private sector?

webnrrd2k• 2 months ago

There's a book that ties into this sort of thing - Gold Warriors [1]. It about how, post WWII, the US recovered a bunch of Gold looted from China and used it to set up an anti-communist slush fund.

[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/249237.Gold_Warriors

burnt-resistor5• 2 months ago

Sounds like using an official position to make money.

A guy I used to know, a retired USAF Maj. pilot, acquired a bunch of racing cars, motorcycles, and a non-flyable MiG-21 through shady characters.

More than likely individual people try to get away with doing shady shit on the side rather than it being a grand UFO conspiracy.

delichon• 2 months ago

A couple of weeks ago there was a story that the CIA raided the office of the director of the NSA and seized information regarding the CIA. Trump was in China at the time. About a week later the NSA director resigns. I waited for it to turn into a major story and get some kind of explanation, but silence.

It seems like an extraordinary story and I don't understand why there isn't a hullabaloo. Did I hallucinate it? Who runs this country?

dabadabad00• 2 months ago

Who runs this country?

American Thought Control.

Crazy crackpot schizos aren’t the only ones listening to the voices in their heads.

NordStreamYacht• 2 months ago

The DNI, not the NSA.

greesil• 2 months ago

Because nobody reputable reported on it?

foobar1726• 2 months ago

Reputable reporters know that publishing those stories leads to break-in burglaries where everyone is killed and nothing is stolen.

greenavocado5• 2 months ago

You think that reputation was earned without submission to intelligence agencies?

wildzzz• 2 months ago

Anna Paulina Luna is the only one claiming that the CIA raided the office of the DNI. No other trustworthy sources are reporting this and there's been no independent verification. Anna Paulina Luna is a lunatic who says outlandish things with no regards to truth.

m348e912• 2 months ago

There might be a mix up on the details.

The FBI raided the home of John Bolton who was a former National Security Advisor for the first Trump administration. (not directly part of the NSA and definitely not the director of the NSA). Bolton has become a vocal critic of Trump since he was fired in Sept 2019.

Trump's DOJ has a track record of prosecuting Trump's vocal critics. eg. Former FBI director James Comey and New York attorney general Letitia James

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosecution_of_John_Bolton

There has been no legal action taken against current NSA director General Joshua M. Rudd or his recent predecessor, William J. Hartman

GJim2• 2 months ago

Trump's DOJ has a track record of prosecuting Trump's vocal critics.

And many Americans claim they have freedom of speech!

(Of course the little guys speech is "free", they aren't important. But the moment the little guy critical of Trump is in a position of power or influence, watch how quickly he is silenced.)

gosub1005• 2 months ago

The media is tightly controlled.

vostrocity• 2 months ago

How porous is the CIA's interview process that they couldn't validate the guy's military discharge status?

EA-3167• 2 months ago

When it comes to stories involving intelligence agencies I generally assume that I’m not getting the whole or accurate story.

pstuart2• 2 months ago

Yeah, the CIA is all about CYA.

IncreasePosts• 2 months ago

How porous is the approving manager/chain that someone can request 300kg of gold bars and no one knows why and they just approve it any way.

profsummergig• 2 months ago

Imagine if government approvals were that easy for things the country actually needed, like safe nuclear energy and bullet trains.

bawolff• 2 months ago

I imagine a big difference is at most jobs the worst that will happen is you get fired, at the CIA you go to jail for the rest of your life.

ProAm• 2 months ago

The CIA is a cash only business.

lenkite• 2 months ago

That is why this story feels fishy.

PedroBatista• 2 months ago

The type of people Intelligence agencies need and use to accomplish their goals are also the type of people who tend to do these things.

dolphinscorpion• 2 months ago

Exactly, honest people would fail at such missions. A few million lost here and there is the cost of doing business

iririririr4• 2 months ago

What a disingenuous way of thinking. Not falling for this is the basis of much religious text by the way. Splitting baby in the middle, etc.

But on the other hand, being a useful fool that blindly does anything for profit, Do seem in line with the people working in tech for the last decade.

Yes, the CIA is a corrupt today as "tech". And no that is not ok nor required, or it ever was like that.

sterlind2• 2 months ago

eh. the shady people are supposed to be the assets; the handlers are supposed to be squeaky clean (on paper, at least.)

but yeah, I imagine that a job which requires keeping secrets and breaking laws tends to attract people who keep secrets and break laws.

rbanffy15• 2 months ago

True, but hiring someone then, later, accusing them of lying in the admission forms that should have been verified before hiring them is bizarre.

I’m sure the CIA could come up with a better excuse.

burnt-resistor5• 2 months ago

Confirmed. CIA hires people with sociopathic/psychopathic tendencies and tries to hire them so they're mild rather than criminal in nature.

jongjong• 2 months ago

I reject the the idea that these types of people are needed. It's probably that most of the people in the CIA happen to be like that because they're power-hungry and they're just selecting their kin and justifying their choices as "right kind" because they narcissistically believe themselves to be the right type... They're probably the wrong type. Especially if they all share narcissistic or psychopathic traits; it's too many, it cannot work.

yieldcrv3• 2 months ago

the CIA told him to make that part of his identity and then burned him with it

isn’t it obvious?

not being charged for the forty million dollars in gold and foreign currency missing, no explanation on why they are even looking for something that was rightly paid out as expenses, no explanation on what kind of expenses those could be to begin with to incur this much, no explanation on why the government wasn't using US dollars to pay a government employee expenses. Its a complete red herring because some client state is paying off a debt, CIA just needs this guy burned

mrandish5• 2 months ago

no explanation on what kind of expenses those could be

I think it's pretty obvious the gold was to pay a bribe. The only thing I'm surprised about is the value. That's A LOT of money for a single pay-off or bribe. It seems more than what would conceivably be paid to an individual at once because spy agencies tend to prefer to pay-as-you-go with individuals. Each round of documents, actions or whatever gets a payment.

So I suspect this was intended to either buy a one-time, career-ending action from someone very senior or, more likely, the ongoing cooperation of a company, gang or small nation-state. It's hard to guess but looking over major events in that time frame, Venezuela might be a good bet. The odd part is that the gold was in his house. Aside from the dumb trade craft of keeping it in the very first place anyone would look, why is the gold even in CONUS?

And why gold? Bulk gold is one of the worse ways to transfer that much money. It's big, heavy, and easy to trace until melted down (which is hardly trivial for most people). But the thing I'm stuck on is the places you can walk into and get cash for even one kilo of gold, much less over 300 of them, is extremely limited - and half of them will be under some form of "Know Your Customer" reporting, especially in North America, and the other half might prefer to "Kill Your Customer" and keep the gold. Diamonds, bearer bonds, offshore numbered account, even good old Benjamins seem far better. I think the amount and medium both narrow down the sort of person or entity the intended recipient must be.

One imagines the sort of folks who'd actually prefer to receive payment in that much gold bar all reside overseas where they might control a national bank or have their own precious metals smelting operation. That's why I'm struggling to picture the fake scenario this senior executive used to plausibly convince anyone at the CIA he personally needed to take possession of more gold than several people can comfortably carry and do so in the vicinity of rural Langley, VA. I mean, he can't carry it on any commercial flight and It's not like he's going to schlepp it himself in his family sedan to put it on a secret CIA cargo flight. The CIA has people for that. Also, someone that senior isn't generally doing any direct case officer work. They manage case officers who manage field assets.

So many interesting questions we'll never get answers to.

rurban2• 2 months ago

The CIA as an illegal and fascist organization tends to hire the illegals and fascists. Drug killers, torturers, and psychopaths.

hypercube33• 2 months ago

There's even a Tom Cruise movie about it called American Made.

FuriouslyAdrift• 2 months ago

When I had to have a TS/SCI with a SAP for a specific mission in the military, they weren't going to wait for the investigation, poly, etc. so a general just waved his hand and signed a hand written note (to be formally typed up later... which never happened) and, ta-da, I had clearance.

It's just like security in any system... sometimes it needs adjusted for expediency. The key is to be eventually consistent at the very least.

peebee672• 2 months ago

If he's truly a "senior" CIA official, he probably actually was a reservist for much of his career, and continued to claim leave for reserve duties after he was discharged. And payroll eventually did pick up on this, which sparked an HR investigation of his credentials, which turned out to be inflated, and only then did they start to look at what this guy was doing with all the money he was taking home. Payroll is probably the only entity in this story that was actually doing their damn job.

I'm curious why he was discharged now.

johnea• 2 months ago

millions of dollars in gold bars for work-related expenses.

Hey, handing over millions of $$s to local warlords is a business expense...

jojobas4• 2 months ago

Yes? Also children of Russian or Iranian generals or deputy ministers.

JumpCrisscross4• 2 months ago

Huh. I’m actually glad to see the IC fragmenting like this.

chatmasta• 2 months ago

Is it fragmenting? The FBI has always been in charge of investigating other agencies. The article even notes that this particular investigation was initiated when the CIA director made a referral to the FBI.

JumpCrisscross4• 2 months ago

article even notes that this particular investigation was initiated when the CIA director made a referral to the FBI

Fair enough.

NooneAtAll3• 2 months ago

That's ~280kg of gold if anyone wonders

xnx• 2 months ago

It would make such a fantastic set of barbell plates.

CSSer• 2 months ago

Gold is pretty soft. You would have to cut it to 10 carat, so there’s be even more to go around!

sneak2• 2 months ago

1kg gold bars are tiny.

nradov• 2 months ago

Or a really cool scuba diving weight belt.

rldjbpin• 2 months ago

now that's how to flex right!

(also so would the plates or the bar holding them!)

Imagenuity• 2 months ago

~ 617 lbs.

iamkrazy• 2 months ago

~ 44 stones

testplzignore• 2 months ago

~681 American footballs. At 27 balls per team per NFL game, an average of 17.8 games per team per season, and an annual salary cap of $301 million, those many balls are equivalent to a salary of $481 million. So by weight, footballs are "worth" 12 times the price of gold.

Joe Burrow weighs 215 lbs and makes $55 million per year. That makes him worth his weight in gold x4.

I'm still researching the average weight of a football field. Depends if it has rained recently.

b3lvedere• 2 months ago

What's their beef with the metric system? :)

omoikane• 2 months ago

The article says "approximately 303 gold bars, each of which weighed approximately one kilogram"

I guess the gold bars aren't uniformly sized, which would agree with your ~280kg number.

iririririr4• 2 months ago

Or the chain of custody lost some 20 bars?

wrsh07• 2 months ago

From the article: > approximately 303 gold bars, each of which weighed approximately one kilogram

So the bars just be a bit under one kg on average

93po3• 2 months ago

probably less by the time it gets into the evidence locker

Computer0• 2 months ago

I'm guessing they decided they don't like the guy anymore? The CIA is very corrupt as an institution and things like this run rampant. Billions of dollars go unaccounted for a year at the CIA.

burnt-resistor5• 2 months ago

DoD <--> defense contractors (military-industrial complex) is pretty close to the same. Never passed an audit and contractors were ripping off the DoD while creating scrap metal that was used by the Taliban. Trillions and trillions wasted.

exabrial• 2 months ago

If this were a Jason Bourne movie, it was the CIA that put the gold bars there.

kingforaday• 2 months ago

I was just looking for something to watch tonight. Thanks for the recommendation!

throw7• 2 months ago

Ehh, more like Rush would've been found dead like Abbott after declaring "I'm a patriot" to internal CIA. What's tantalizing about Bourne is something about who we are and capable of, regardless of conditioning... both good and bad.

mmooss2• 2 months ago

The CIA legitimately engages in bribery and hard asset payments. Note that the CIA approved his request and gave him these assets (or at least many of them - the paragraph below doesn't specify the amount).

From last November to March, the court papers say, Mr. Rush asked for, and received, “a significant quantity of foreign currency and tens of millions of dollars in gold bars for work-related expenses.”

Possibly the question here is, why did Rush take them home. It's always possible Rush was just sloppy and undisciplined, which would also reflect a cultural problem. Many people have been found with secret documents in their homes.

lazide• 2 months ago

If he still has them, it’s probably ‘garden variety’ workplace embezzlement.

Make up some sources, pretend to pay them, cash the payments.

He probably just got sloppy, and it got too obvious.

vintermann2• 2 months ago

"Legitimately" is a nonsense word in that sentence.

greenavocado5• 2 months ago

Someone's gotta pay for the mortgage at 7327 Georgetown Pike, McLean VA

skeledrew2• 2 months ago

Guy sounds like a dragon. What's the deal with the watches though?

NDlurker• 2 months ago

I imagine watches are more liquid than gold bars

TZubiri• 2 months ago

also they seem to be a virus that wealth-chasing people catch on to

raverbashing• 2 months ago

Gee I don't know, they look pretty solid to me, unless they're Dalí watches /s

rubzah• 2 months ago

They're very high value by weight, very fungible, and there is much less regulation about carrying them across international borders.

elektronika2• 2 months ago

Watches are the commodity of choice for corruption in some circles. I know people in jewelry and a significant portion of their transactions are watches to Chinese businessmen, formerly through Hong Kong, now through Singapore. They're high value items with razor thin margins.

solenoid09374• 2 months ago

I collect watches worth >$100k and I promise you that most collectors in this range are just watch nerds that have more money than they know what to do with.

Singapore is a big watch market because it has a very tight knit and wealthy collector community.

Margins on most watches in this range are around 10% on the low end. I wouldn't call that razor thin.

qingcharles• 2 months ago

Most of the time you can wear a watch through customs and move $250K without anyone blinking an eyelid. If it has a box and papers you mail those ahead of you. (Don't have them in your luggage)

rdtsc2• 2 months ago

From last November to March, the court papers say, Mr. Rush asked for, and received, “a significant quantity of foreign currency and tens of millions of dollars in gold bars for work-related expenses.”

- "I need these bars to pay off this Russian spy who will tell us Putin's nuclear codes password"

Comes back a week later

- "His password is 12345"

- "How do we know the story is not fake?"

- "What am I going to get a signed receipt from him? Duh..."

jojobas4• 2 months ago

It is an eternal problem with human intelligence. GRU and FSB spend serious resources on provoking their own agents, aimed at a range of problems including this one.

stult• 2 months ago

Weirdly the CIA actually does require case officers to get signed receipts from their assets for payments. Whether they verify the signatures is another question...

rdtsc2• 2 months ago

Ha! That's interesting. I think it would be funny to read some of those. "I, Mr. Ivanov, the Russian spy, got: 2 bars of gold, 5 buckets of caviar, 10 cases of vodka and 3 kilos of cocaine". Then they call the CIA headquarters complaining the cocaine is stale and they would rather have another 5 buckets of caviar instead.

VladVladikoff2• 2 months ago

Archive.ph/archive.today failing me to bypass paywall, is everyone commenting on the title? Or you all have NYT subscriptions? Or you know of some other bypass?

tjohns• 2 months ago

Many community libraries offer free NYTimes access to their patrons.

faitswulff• 2 months ago

I get 24 hour access through my local library. Here, have a gift link https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/27/us/politics/fbi-arrest-ci...

ethagnawl2• 2 months ago

I had no idea this was an option. Libraries are the best.

VladVladikoff2• 2 months ago

Thank you!

kwar13• 2 months ago

oh man i just discovered that i have access to a lot of publications through my local library! thanks for this!

mahirsaid• 2 months ago

okay now the Director!

siavosh• 2 months ago

“$40 million…a small fortune” — inflation has gotten out of hand!

sudoshred3• 2 months ago

nearly retired

gessha• 2 months ago

A couple more gigs and I can FIRE

m4632• 2 months ago

That's only like 8 houses in mountain view.

esseph4• 2 months ago

Or one house in Beverly Hills.

devmor• 2 months ago

That could buy like, 30 houses here in Atlanta! Wow I have it good.

yangm97• 2 months ago

Should’ve used Monero or something lmao

passive• 2 months ago

So we have this, and the Google employee polymarket trading:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48302822

I'm totally not surprised, except that Trump's admin is actually catching and prosecuting these people.

I assume that means this is just the tip of the iceberg, and the grift is so predominant that they can't help but catch some people.

Radle• 2 months ago

From last November to March, the court papers say, Mr. Rush asked for, and received, “a significant quantity of foreign currency and tens of millions of dollars in gold bars for work-related expenses.”

Obvious plant nobody would be that stupid to store the valuables at home within the first six months after the „acquisition“.

——

Also the CIA was unable to confirm his discharge with the navy earlier? As if people aren’t properly vetted every time they switch jobs within the agency. (Especially considering his CIA career was on an upward trajectory)

I have no clue what Mr. Rush actually did but it was neither of these two things which earned him ire.

Maybe he’s a traitor and the gold + foreign money are bribes. If the CIA doesn’t want to explain what he‘s been bribed for the charges make a more sense.

derefr3• 2 months ago

nobody would be that stupid to store the valuables at home within the first six months after the „acquisition“.

But where else would you keep it? A safe-deposit box at a bank?

I think, if I received illegitimate gold bars and figured the FBI might look into that, I would choose to keep them somewhere where a judge would think twice before issuing a search warrant for. Judges don't generally just issue search warrants for residences willy-nilly (because there can often be collateral damage); they're much more blasé about issuing search warrants for safe-deposit boxes.

Or are you imagining he'd go bury the gold in a hole in the woods somewhere?

unsupp0rted• 2 months ago

Or are you imagining he'd go bury the gold in a hole in the woods somewhere?

Why not?

formerly_proven• 2 months ago

Judges don't generally just issue search warrants for residences willy-nilly

What are you on about, searching homes is the #1 criminal investigation technique once you're able to name a suspect.

phlipski• 2 months ago

Mr. Rush clearly did not watch Breaking Bad...

But how did the CIA not check on whether or not he had graduated from one of the three different colleges he listed as graduating from the three different times he applied for a job at the CIA?!?!?

Aurornis6• 2 months ago

Everyone is a criminal mastermind after reading about someone else getting caught: You only have to say you wouldn’t do the thing that they did and you can smugly imagine yourself getting away with it.

He didn’t acquire 300 gold bars and the other currency at once. He was getting these over a long period. He works for an intelligence agency, so he knew that his actions were going to be investigated. If he was doing any of these routines suggested in the comments like buying a rural plot of land to bury them or taking up camping (alone, by himself) these are all going to raise suspicions and become another thing that could give me away.

Aurornis6• 2 months ago

Obvious plant nobody would be that stupid to store the valuables at home within the first six months after the „acquisition“.

This is an entertaining conspiracy theory because you'd have to believe that the CIA was so smart that they would completely manufacture a story to get someone arrested, yet so dumb that they'd make up a story that raises questions and makes them look like they did some stupid things.

If a powerful organization hypothetically wanted to get someone arrested by planting evidence, do you really believe this is the best idea they could come up with?

fc417fc8024• 2 months ago

The idea isn't that they manufacture it from scratch but rather that they contrive a convenient explanation for the physical reality that already exists. In that scenario the evidence isn't planted but rather misattributed.

bandrami• 2 months ago

CIA recruits a lot of square pegs who didn't quite fit in to other parts of government

rbanffy15• 2 months ago

But it still vets them. This is very odd.

jonnybgood2• 2 months ago

CIA recruitment is actually highly competitive. The best avenue to get to the top of the list when applying is if you have an “in”. CIA managers still do college campus visits, and for new college graduates who have done an interview with that individual and decide to apply that can use that person to get to the top of the list.

saghm3• 2 months ago

Honestly I'm just trying to wrap my head around the fact that you can just ask for $40M in gold bars as a CIA agent and they don't have a better way of figuring out if you pocketed it than looking for it later (and apparently taking a while to think of checking his home?)

expedition32• 2 months ago

Who watches the watchers?

gosub1005• 2 months ago

There's more to the story they aren't letting on to.

pjc50• 2 months ago

Probably a mini Iran-Contra. Get approval for paying $40m to [SECRET] to carry out acts of pro-US terrorism. Steal the gold. Tip off the enemies of the group so they fail/are killed/arrested. Then report to your superior that the mission was a failure due to enemy action.

rubyn00bie• 2 months ago

Planting drugs would be wildly easier, both logistically and conveniently. Gold bars have got to be among the least easy ways to manufacture evidence to throw someone behind bars. Hell it could even easily explain the gold bars…

There’s zero reason to assume this is anything but exceptional incompetence, and looking at the current administration that’s wildly easy to believe.

seanhunter• 2 months ago

Obvious plant nobody would be that stupid to store the valuables at home within the first six months after the „acquisition“.

Whenever you say "nobody would be that stupid" you have to pause and take a deep breath and realise that however dumb something is, there are for sure people who are stupid enough to do it.

Example 1 from personal experience: I was at my aunt's house and she had to rush a friend's husband to get medical help because he had drilled a hole in his own stomach with a hand drill while trying to put up a bookshelf.

The friend had been reading a book on medieval medicine so (rather than rushing her husband immediately to hospital) decided to try a medieval remedy on him so fed him some soup to see whether (in line with the medieval diagnostic routine) she could smell it after he had eaten it. She could indeed, because it dribbled out of the hole he had drilled in his stomach.

Now. You might reasonably say: "Noone would be so dumb as to drill a hole in their own stomach" or indeed "noone would be so dumb as to see a loved one who had drilled a hole in themselves and decide to feed them soup" but I can tell you from direct personal experience there are people dumb enough to do this.

Example 2 from personal experience[1]: A friend of my dad who was a highly capable chemical engineer and generally very practical guy (eg he made a motorcycle for his kids to play on using salvaged parts including a lawnmower engine and a frame he welded together himself) was a hobby parachutist. He broke his spine because he decided to modify his parachute himself on his wife's sewing machine in spite of having no previous sewing experience.

However dumb something is, there are people dumb enough to do it and even otherwise smart people have blind spots that make them incredibly dumb under the right circumstances.

[1] Just in case you think smart people can't do incredibly dumb things.

lab142• 2 months ago

I mean, you see smart people all over the world talking to imaginary, supernatural, all powerfull beings asking for favors via prayers, like that would have any effect on their lives.

Tangurena210• 2 months ago

Whenever you say "nobody would be that stupid" you have to pause and take a deep breath and realise that however dumb something is, there are for sure people who are stupid enough to do it.

Long ago, I graduated from a police academy. One of the things taught was that crooks, while clever at finding ways to make money, are rather unclever ("stupid" if you will) at performing that task. Which is why so many are caught.

The smart engineer who over-estimated his ability with sewing is a tragic example of the Dunning-Kruger effect.

I'm reminded of the Dunning Kruger paper [0]:

In 1995, McArthur Wheeler walked into two Pittsburgh banks and robbed them in broad daylight, with no visible attempt at disguise. He was arrested later that night, less than an hour after videotapes of him taken from surveillance cameras were broadcast on the 11 o'clock news. When police later showed him the surveillance tapes, Mr. Wheeler stared in incredulity. "But I wore the juice," he mumbled. Apparently, Mr. Wheeler was under the impression that rubbing one's face with lemon juice rendered it invisible to videotape cameras.

Links:

0 - that paper itself: https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/sasi/wp-content/uploads/sites/27...

ericyd2• 2 months ago

The first story could literally be a sketch on a comedy show, thanks for the laugh

nojs• 2 months ago

that was a fantastic story, thanks

troyvit2• 2 months ago

Obvious plant

$40 million in gold bars is about a thousand pounds of gold. That would be hard to plant.

harambae• 2 months ago

Not that it matters, but I think it's closer to 600 lbs.

$40M /( $4.5k / oz) and then (1 lbs / 16 oz)

SG-• 2 months ago

As if people aren’t properly vetted every time they switch jobs within the agency.

have you seen the criminals elected to run your country and the ones they've put in important policy decisions?

mhb• 2 months ago

The In-Laws:

Shel: "You robbed the U.S. Mint on your own? The CIA thought it was too crazy?"

Vince: "Too risky."

kQq9oHeAz6wLLS• 2 months ago

There's a surprising number of CIA and secret agent experts in this comments section.

tgarrett• 2 months ago

I've seen From Russia With Love, Goldfinger, and Thunderball I'll have you know.

OccamsMirror• 2 months ago

Burn After Reading

PowerElectronix• 2 months ago

That's MI-6

burnt-resistor5• 2 months ago

I saw a John Kiriakou book on a shelf once.

hacker_homie• 2 months ago

Mysteriously only 39.12 million dollars is accounted for, The FBI is carefully monitoring the remaining 38.25 million dollars of gold, for a hearing later this week where the fate of the 36.5 million dollars of gold will be decided.

Frieren• 2 months ago

You can get the president of the United States to work for you for way less money than that.

v4rp1ng• 2 months ago

https://archive.is/9Qb1K

abrookewood• 2 months ago

This could easily be an episode from Snowfall (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6439752/), the rather excellent TV show about the early days of the crack cocaine epidemic in Los Angeles during the beginning of the 1980s. The CIA feature prominently and regularly acquire large amounts of cash & narcotics in order to run their operations.

p0w3n3d2• 2 months ago

There's this one guy who's apparently also insider and he and his family earns a lot of money because of market manipulation with his decisions. Maybe FBI should get into him as well?

jgilias• 2 months ago

Nah, he’ll just get some deal where the FBI can’t investigate him and his family for anything ever. Yay for democracy and rule of law.

p0w3n3d2• 2 months ago

Yay...

Yay indeed

bilekas• 2 months ago

I can't read the full article, but the subtitle says :

The only charge lodged against David Rush is that he inflated his academic credentials and obtained military leave pay worth tens of thousands of dollars.

Is this guys just very good at saving gold for CIA/personal reasons and it's still his or is this gold in related to some crime ?

mikeyouse• 2 months ago

Almost assuredly they charged him on the crime easiest enough to get a search warrant and arrest warrant and this original indictment will be superseded with one covering the full gambit of his crimes.

quijoteuniv• 2 months ago

Really? Gold? Mr.Rush? … unbelievable what a surname can inflict on you

rolandog• 2 months ago

In a weird reversal to Conway's law, the organizational structure of the US government has started to resemble the software it uses [0].

[0] https://www.globalnerdy.com/2011/07/03/org-charts-of-the-big...

noobermin• 2 months ago

He just needs to profess his love for our country (the president, you know how Trump says attacks on him are attacks on the whole country) and may be say he has dirt on the deep state or hasan piker or something. Trump will be inviting him to the white house where he can steal from the government and tax payers in a more sanctioned way.

pyuser5832• 2 months ago

I read a book by a CIA officer. A big part the job is carrying around tons of cash for shady people. It’s understood that if you take the cash for yourself, you go to prison.

The ironic thing is the money usually goes missing. It gets given to some VIPs brother, who is supposed to give it to VIP, but doesn’t.

The important thing is it not go missing while you are watching it. It can go missing later - just not on your watch.

wombat-man• 2 months ago

interested in knowing what book, if it was good.

pyuser5832• 2 months ago

It was an anecdote from “First In.” It is about the CIA officers who arrived first in Afghanistan: with gigantic bags of cash.

ASalazarMX• 2 months ago

The guy this post is about is likely in the same situation, trafficking valuables and money as part of his job, officially or not. Who gave him orders?

dzonga2• 2 months ago

this being the C.I.A - this guy is being railroaded or is being made a fall guy.

he will serve a short jail term but at least he will live.

remember folks - C.I.A is the only gvt org that self funds itself & can run entirely without gvt money.

thephyber5• 2 months ago

is the only gvt org that self funds itself & can run entirely without gvt money

Citation needed.

The CIA receives lots of opaque funding from the US government (at least opaque to citizens trying to FOIA), but just because it’s not easily accounted for doesn’t mean the org funds itself.

dzonga2• 2 months ago

that's the point. you can't prove it. I can't prove it.

however - with a little common sense you can link everything together.

CIA has mandate to operate abroad. they can own mines, journalism houses, drug operations - abroad & in the U.S. technically the CIA is not allowed by law to operate in the US (but bcoz they're too powerful - they now have a free pass in that area)

remember they can also self-classify material. which means what they own will always remain opaque till they choose to declassify it usually after 70 or so years.

> now back to the gold. remember they're restrictions around gold citizens can hold etc. & suddenly a private citizen has massive gold bars ? how so ? unless they were holding the gold for a powerful entity (but discovered by some gvt agency & now they need a fall guy) ?

gosub1005• 2 months ago

I think it's somehow related to the recent whistle blower and or the congressman who sent an open letter to the head of CIA saying "I'm not sure if you're getting my requests through private channels so please call me when you get this". There's something terrible going on in the agency (terrible even by their standards who drown people and revive them) and I think this might be an attempt to bring it to light.

allenrb• 2 months ago

I’ve walked off with a few of my employer’s pens over the years. Is this really so different?

rafael-lua• 2 months ago

By the title only, having gold bars is bad? There it goes my plans of buying some.

VikRubenfeld• 2 months ago

The article says "A senior C.I.A. official was arrested last week after investigators found hundreds of gold bars worth over $40 million stashed in his Virginia residence, a small fortune that he apparently brought home from work, according to court papers."

The same article also says:

"When the C.I.A. conducted a review of where the gold and currency were stashed, the agency was “unable to locate the gold bars or significant amounts of the foreign currency,” according to court papers."

The NY Times fact checkers don't seem to have seen this article.

theseidel• 2 months ago

Did Scott Rudin already option it? "Gold Rush"

pseingatl2• 2 months ago

You don't take possession of 600 pounds of gold without a plan. Putting it in a hole isn't putting it to work. Sell it to a country where jewelry is manufactured, that at least gets it into the banking system. Lebanon loves gold. So does India. If this guy is under investigation, everything linked to him will be discovered. He can't really spend it. Aldrich Ames bought a Jaguar and was caught.

rimworld• 2 months ago

Gold Rush, yet another very unlikely story

0xbadcafebee• 2 months ago

The gold bars and foreign cash thing seems normal. They have to pay off warlords, drug dealers, foreign dignitaries, informants, assets. You can't be filling out requisition forms, going through multiple banks in foreign nations, carrying gold bars and cash in and out of banks, etc to pay off a secret government informant. Somebody will see the money trail, tip off the bad guys, and your op is over (and the informant is dead)

But of course it's also bad because not only can the money easily be stolen, there's basically no transparency into how intelligence agencies use taxpayer money. I have no idea how much corruption is in intelligence and military, but it's probably a lot, considering just how easy it is to steal or misappropriate these funds

aussiegreenie• 2 months ago

How quickly can we get the movie?

FBI arrests CIA official with $40M in gold bars in his home

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