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

nytimes.com

271–280 of 419 posts

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

#271
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…

> 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…

> 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...

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

#272

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? W…

The media is tightly controlled.

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

#273

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 ?

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.

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

#274

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 you…

interested in knowing what book, if it was good.

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

#275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

the CIA is literally tasked with breaking (other countries') laws. tradecraft is a very similar skillset to being an effective criminal. think about it: shell companies, lockpicks, bribes, theft, blackmail, hacking, forgery. two kinds of people do those things: spooks, and the mob. the difference is why you're doing it and to whom. also, if anything the CIA is far tamer today than it was in the '60s.

A lot of the really sketchy stuff the CIA used to do has been folded under special ops parts of the military. After the church committee, the CIA has to report to the senate intelligence committee. The military only really answers to the Commander in Chief(POTUS), and gets away with a lot more.

Check out the book "The Fort Bragg Cartel". Tl;Dr, the US military and special ops were holding up the poppy industry in Afghanistan, something like 80% of the world's supply of Heroin came out of US occupied Afghanistan. The DEA would look the other way on shipments intercepted over a certain size.

The special ops guys brought the drug trafficking home, now i95 through the southern states is a major drug trafficking route.

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

#276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

flock or any number of cameras that contribute to flock would see you.

They would see you driving out into the sticks to go camping for a few days. That's entirely normal isn't it? We haven't (yet) made it to the level of flock cameras on gravel logging roads.

If there are deer or elk in the region, it is reasonable to believe that there will be "trail cameras" in the region. Many of them are camouflaged to look exactly like tree bark. In the event that you are considering burying treasure in that plot of land, it would behoove you to carefully inspect:

1. the fences to see where people have been cutting them or splicing them to allow for easier access.

2. All the trees within eyesight of your proposed Pirate Loot site for camo'd trail cameras. Install some of your own to ensure no one is a frequent flier in your turf. Ginseng poachers are a problem in wooded lands in the Eastern part of the US. With legal weed (in many states), growing pot on someone else's land has died down a lot (the owner of the land ends up in legal trouble).

In the end, it might be easier to dig up part of your basement to bury it there. And to obtain a large gun safe to appear to be where valuables are stored. If someone wonders why the cement floor has cut/repair marks, just shudder and mumble plumbing work on the main drain line due to tree roots.

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

#277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even more tantalizing is that it was probably a domestic bribe he was tasked with. Traveling internationally with hundreds of kg of gold is not very reasonable and I'd assume they have access to resources in other countries as needed. And we'll get all the answer, it'll just take 50 years, and then everything will probably make a lot more sense. Maybe even sooner if an administration finally gets the courage and brai…

I don't think it'd be difficult for the CIA to charter a cargo plane from somewhere in the USA without any questions being asked. They used to be very involved in the air freight trade. Guns don't move themselves!

They still own several air freight companies!

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

#278
post #258
post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's only like 8 houses in mountain view.

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

Probably about ~35-40 apartments in Barcelona. Going out to Spanish rural areas, you could probably buy ~4-6 abandoned villages with that, you'll get multiple houses, municipal buildings and whatever administrative stuff they had too.

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

#279
post #267
post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ??

Check out the Cirrus Vision. About $3 million. Very decent jet. Seven people, easy to fly, nifty safety features.

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

#280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So does your car now, if it’s made after 2018.

For such wealth, basic opsec would be worth it 10000x over, cia folks should know it well. No phone, use old car, pack it with camping gear placed above the gold. Initially go prepare the place, heck even setup a movement-triggered camera there for few weeks. Go where there is lush greenery so you can actually dig 1-2m deep hole in the dirt without dynamite. Learn how to cover place so it looks natural. And learn how…

One thing that the Bosnian/Serbian conflict/genocide [0] taught authorities is how to find hidden grave sites. Ground penetrating radar comes in a convenient device that is sized & shaped like a typical American lawnmower.

Soil comes in layers and it would be best to spread ground cloths to capture different soils from different layers and to replace them at the appropriate levels in the ground. While this won't defeat ground penetrating radar, it will make the burial site more closely resemble surrounding soil to make the "signal" harder for the less skilled operators to detect.

Links:

0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosnian_War

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