YouTube description:
WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE DONE.
If, while you were restoring a captured Iraqi tank from gulf war one with lots of help from friends and family you made the find of your life.
Earlier in the week you had found live 50 cal ammunition and had to call the firearms dept and hand it in pronto.
So your already thinking other stuff could come to light and every time you unbolt another lump, you wonder what could be behind it. Then you can't understand why you can't lift the last external fuel tank even though you know it's been drained by yourself. All the fixings are undone, all the pipes are disconnected but it won't budge. Turns out it's just the sheer weight! with some help you manage to lever the fuel tank up with a crowbar then lift it higher with a scaffold tube. Its then that you see a suspicious square hole hacked in the bottom of the fuel tank. Your expecting guns but find five huge gold bars weighing about 5 kilos a piece. lots of useful suggestions from the team, Cash converters, cash for gold?- I don't think so. In the end it's a choice between the police, the Iraqi embassy or Kuwaiti embassy. Bear in mind the tank could easily have been involved with the invasion of Kuwait and the defence of Iraqi before it was captured by the British army and brought back to the UK as a trophy of war.
If you report the find and it's taken away- it's unlikely you will ever see it again, but you know your squeaky clean and in the clear. who knows one day, probably not soon, it could legally be yours.
WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE DONE.
(via
http://digg.com/video/gold-found-tank H/T @
eric3579)
8 Comments
newtboyI think I might report finding ONE (but not turn it over to anyone until the courts decide the owner, possession is 9/10 of the law), see what happens, and if I'm OK with the outcome, report the other 4. If it's just confiscated and disappears, keep the other 4 and consider it a free tank.
Since they paid for the tank (I assume) anything in it belongs to them, no? That's certainly how every auction I've attended worked.
How could you possibly trace rough cast gold bars? Those looked like they were smelted into sand molds with NO markings. Forcing the government to prove who's it is before getting their hands on it sounds way better to me than handing it over and hoping at some point they admit they can't.
My gold. I stole it, it's mine.
oritteropoThat's not how it works in England, Wales, or Northern Ireland.
The gold could fall under the Treasure Act of 1996, as being:
They are legally required to report the find within 14 days, and if it does fall into that category they are eligible for a reward up to the value of the treasure.
It might also be found to still be property of the Iraqi government.
I think I might report finding ONE (but not turn it over to anyone until the courts decide the owner, possession is 9/10 of the law), see what happens, and if I'm OK with the outcome, report the other 4. If it's just confiscated and disappears, keep the other 4 and consider it a free tank.
Since they paid for the tank (I assume) anything in it belongs to them, no? That's certainly how every auction I've attended worked.
How could you possibly trace rough cast gold bars? Those looked like they were smelted into sand molds with NO markings. Forcing the government to prove who's it is before getting their hands on it sounds way better to me than handing it over and hoping at some point they admit they can't.
My gold. I stole it, it's mine.
AeroMechanicalsays...Where do you get a scale that has stones for a unit? I want one of those.
Also, I wouldn't have reported it. Too much hassle. I'm sure there is gold involved in a tank's construction somewhere. So, you know, it's just a component.
It's probably stamped. Probably belongs to a Kuwaiti bank. Nah, too much hassle.
CrushBugBased on what they said of the weight, and the Google price of gold, they are looking at about $1.1 million US there.
makachyou cannot put a price on honesty.
some good comments between "why didn't you keep them" on YT. I think one of the best comments I read was about the potential strain on friendship between the involved parties. Gold do crazy things with people.
bobknight33This is my response.
I Know Nothing
jimnmsThere was a movie like that. I think it was three or four friends hunting in a forest find a crashed plane with bags of cash in it. They kept the money and reported the plane crash, then got greedy and killed each other or something. It wasn't a great movie and it was a long time ago, so the details didn't stick with me.
you cannot put a price on honesty.
some good comments between "why didn't you keep them" on YT. I think one of the best comments I read was about the potential strain on friendship between the involved parties. Gold do crazy things with people.
spawnflaggerThe video has a lot of jump cuts - could be an extra bar that never made it to the video...
Certainly if they did keep it, they would not have posted a video about it. That's just inviting burglars to come around. When he called the police, he should have said "send an armored car" rather than an ambulance.
I couldn't see any stamp from the video, and if each bar was that heavy it's pretty close to pure, would be hard to trace unless they could prove where the tank was around the same time something large and gold was stolen...
I'd love to see a follow up on this one.
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