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

nytimes.com

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

#261

Post by gosub100 »

dzonga wrote: post #242

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.

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.

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

#262

Post by pjc50 »

saghm wrote: post #164
Radle wrote: post #118

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…

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?)

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.

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

#263

Post by paulryanrogers »

lab14 wrote: post #253
seanhunter wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

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.

Guessing the downvotes are because you said 'imaginary' about things folks consider very personal and are mostly unfalsifiable.

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

#264

Post by autoexec »

close04 wrote: post #216
derefr wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because, for someone with any kind of security clearance, suddenly going out to the woods, if you don't normally go out to the woods, would be a major outlier from your highly-scrutinized and documented regular life; and so could easily lead the FBI to finding your buried gold, without having to get any kind of warrant.

Isn't the FBI investigating deaths and disappearances of people with critical access to sensitive material and only found out about it from a newspaper? How much resources do you think are put into monitoring every aspect of the lives of people with access to sensitive info? https://www.cbsnews.com/news/deaths-disappearances-scientist...

The government is already tracking every possible detail they can get their hands about every single citizen. Why wouldn't they expend at least that much effort on the people with sensitive information? The records are collected, the only question left is when/how often they get used.

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

#265

Post by filoeleven »

saghm wrote: post #170
rbanffy wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are not supposed to break laws in the US.

They're not supposed to operate in the US at all. I'm practice I imagine that's mostly aspirational

Same with NSA - they are not allowed to conduct surveillance of US citizens on US soil. Shit needs to be brought under control.

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

#267

Post by brk »

m4ck_ wrote: post #260
rbanffy wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not even a decent jet.

You can definitely get a decent jet in that budget, there's a popular tech youtuber who recently bought one for considerably less. I'm pretty sure you could get like 6 houses in mountain view and still have money left over for a jet.

We clearly have differing opinions on what constitutes a decent jet. Are you buying your jets used??

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

#268

Post by Filligree »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #263
lab14 wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Guessing the downvotes are because you said 'imaginary' about things folks consider very personal and are mostly unfalsifiable.

I feel like that says more about them. Feeling good about the existence of something, or bad about its absence, does not count as evidence.

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

#269

Post by rithdmc »

thephyber wrote: post #252
rithdmc wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd move that up a bit! Iran-Contra was around '85, and that involved trading cocaine, which ended up on the streets of the USA, for arms. I think using the 60s as a comparison unfairly implies the CIA rehabilitated sooner than should be implied.

I suspect the 1960s was chosen because it was before the Church Committee. Back then, the CIA had fewer restrictions about working within the USA.

Got it, thanks. The CIA's cocaine was still ending up on the streets of America during Iran-Contra, though, so I (in my very uninformed opinion!) don't feel like the CIA cared that much.

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

#270

Post by MSFT_Edging »

derefr wrote: post #176
unsupp0rted wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or are you imagining he'd go bury the gold in a hole in the woods somewhere? Why not?

Because, for someone with any kind of security clearance, suddenly going out to the woods, if you don't normally go out to the woods, would be a major outlier from your highly-scrutinized and documented regular life; and so could easily lead the FBI to finding your buried gold, without having to get any kind of warrant.

I think you're overselling the security clearance system.

In reality, it'd flag something like "taking out a massive loan for no discernible reason", or "filed for bankruptcy".

I believe a huge part of the big AI push is that the government dragnets have collected so much data, it's nearly impossible to sift through and they're hoping LLMs can finally make sense of it, along the lines of what you're suggesting.

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