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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

#311

Post by [deleted] »

e40 wrote: post #232
rbanffy wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it still vets them. This is very odd.

Vetting has been put on hold in cases where there are labor shortages. Don’t remember where, but I read an account of a military guy applying to ICE and they did no vetting at all, and had he accepted the jobs with a sizablebonus (he did it to see what their process was) he would have been deployed without training. At the time the source and person seemed credible. This is what happens when a new administration fire…

[deleted]

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

#312

Post by Aurornis »

derefr wrote: post #128
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…

> 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 warran…

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.

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

#313

Post by FuriouslyAdrift »

vostrocity wrote: post #16

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

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.

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

#314

Post by dgacmu »

embedding-shape wrote: post #278
devmor wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But then you'd have to keep stealing more gold bars for the upkeep, and who has time for that?

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

#315

Post by SG- »

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…

>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?

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

#316

Post by criticas »

somenameforme wrote: post #150
mrandish wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 paymen…

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…

Traveling internationally with hundreds of pounds of gold wouldn't be that hard for a CIA senior official on "official" business. A diplomatic passport and access to the State Department or War Department's fleet of aircraft would get you pretty far.

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

#317

Post by WhitneyLand »

randusername wrote: post #287
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.

> like that would have any effect on their lives Prayer is more than begging favors from imaginary friends, even if that is the stereotype and there is some truth in it. Like meditation, journaling, and other contemplative practices, it is a mechanism for putting the day-to-day in proper context of some larger narrative. In a theological framework, then, it's about a narrative in which you aren't alone in your joys a…

“Like meditation, journaling, and other contemplative practices”

The big difference is that meditation and journaling do not require a belief that you are communicating with supernatural beings.

“I don't think intelligence and spiritual practice are mutually exclusive.”

That’s a low bar. At the least we know supernatural/religious beliefs are negatively correlated with scientific training and scientific eminence.

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

#318

Post by alphawhisky »

randusername wrote: post #287
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.

> like that would have any effect on their lives Prayer is more than begging favors from imaginary friends, even if that is the stereotype and there is some truth in it. Like meditation, journaling, and other contemplative practices, it is a mechanism for putting the day-to-day in proper context of some larger narrative. In a theological framework, then, it's about a narrative in which you aren't alone in your joys a…

I think most people would argue that's just being a moral person. Jesus was a humanist, after all. I find that these days, the folks looking for community won't really build for others, and the folks looking to build for others are extremely hesitant to join a community. You tell me why and which group are better Christians.

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

#319

Post by solenoid0937 »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #135
cwsx wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the appeal of collecting high priced watches? Is it kind of like art collections, where its a decent store of value while maintaining a collection of something you are personally interested in? Or is it more for "love of the game"? Not saying its not a cool thing to collect, well made watches are a very cool piece of engineering, I'm just curious if there's any "special" appeal outside of "i like this thing an…

> What's the appeal of collecting high priced watches? It is the same reason that women collect high priced handbags. Men and women use these items to signal their wealth and status (in public).

Sure, some people use them to signal status but I'd say the vast majority of the collector community does not buy expensive watches for that reason.

At the $100k range you get a lot of things that appeal to a watch enthusiast: true high-horology hand finishing (like handmade anglage and sharp interior angles), some of the more advanced complications, more interesting escapements, etc.

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

#320

Post by coldpie »

solenoid0937 wrote: post #104
elektronika wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

> I collect watches worth >$100k

It's off topic for this thread, but I'd totally read a blog post about that hobby :)

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