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[–] 92 points 5 hours ago* (36 children)

There is absolutely no way I'd have turned those in.

Edit: I found the article, the lad may have a payout coming to him.

It is now held in Brussels as authorities investigate its legal ownership. Belgian law mandates a five-year waiting period for claimants; afterward, the find could be divided between Kobe and the property owner if no owner comes forward and it's not criminal money.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/katematthams/2026/08/15/summer-job-student-finds-gold-stash-worth-over-10-million/

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  • [–] 86 points 4 hours ago (28 children)

    Hope he gets his due. I cannot fathom the mind that sees Fuck You-money and immediately thinks "oh gosh, I need to give this to a cop!" But I'm sure he meant well.

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  • [–] 40 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

    He wasn't alone when he found it. It was an entire construction team, building and digging on a municipally owned site which was publicly accessible and almost certainly monitored, if remotely.

    There was no conceivable way to keep that find quiet under those circumstances.

    So if he did manage to pinch off one, props to him.

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  • [–] 59 points 4 hours ago (25 children)

    Same, but probably difficult to turn $10M in gold into spending money without someone noticing.

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  • [–] 39 points 4 hours ago* (8 children)

    Yeah, if I found like a hundred thousand in cash, it wouldn’t get into a bank account, I’d just be buying groceries and retail purchases in cash for a long time, and saving the money I would have spent normally. Maybe asking places to make change so if the serial numbers get noted, things get spread about a bit.

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  • [–] 3 points 37 minutes ago*

    Don't forget any home improvement tasks. Need your yard leveled? Landscapers would love to give a slight cash discount.

    Tree needs taking down? Cash.

    Tuckpointing a chimney? Cash.

    Annoyingly, you can't actually use "cash" cash for a cash down payment on a house. Mortgage lenders like to know where the money is coming from.

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  • [–] 48 points 4 hours ago* (6 children)

    hundred thousand in cash

    groceries

    In the U.S., that would get you enough food for weeks!

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  • [–] 15 points 4 hours ago (5 children)

    Seriously. Loaded up on groceries this weekend, and total cost for 1.75 carts was well over $600

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  • [–] 10 points 3 hours ago (4 children)

    What the actual fuck is going on over there. My condolences

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  • [–] 14 points 3 hours ago (2 children)

    Just some minor societal collapse. Don't worry, we'll totally get better...

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  • [–] 13 points 4 hours ago (9 children)

    That's why you bury it in the backyard and only use little bits at a time.

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  • [–] 8 points 4 hours ago (3 children)

    How would you even go about turning a huge bar of gold into cash anyways?

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  • [–] 8 points 3 hours ago

    A single bar? Chip off a 50g piece, re-melt it, sell it to a jeweler or cash-for-gold place. Rinse & repeat with enough time inbetween and never in the same location twice, and always for cash.

    Multiple bars will either require a multi year plan or more... professional means.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 hours ago (3 children)

    Exactly, even if he kept 1 bar any place he could legally exchange it will have to give the appropriate tax documents since its such a high amount

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  • [–] 3 points 2 hours ago* (2 children)

    I thought gold was soft enough to be easily cut by a lot of other more common metals

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  • [–] 4 points 3 hours ago

    Idk. If I lived in a place where healthcare was a right, in which I had reasonable expectations of having my basic needs met, where I felt I didn't need to scramble day in day out just to survive ...

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  • [–] 6 points 4 hours ago (6 children)

    Yeah he should have just brought them to the grocery store and paid with them. Idiot.

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  • [–] 7 points 4 hours ago (2 children)

    I have a friend who used to do exactly this. He used to be a bit of a conspiracy nut and didn't believe in the stability (or validity, for that matter) of the US dollar. He wanted to do all his monetary exchanges in gold and silver, which were very stable and reliable at the time (about 2 decades ago).

    I don't know how exactly, but he converted any cash he earned into gold and then worked out a deal with his local grocery store to buy his groceries with tiny bits of gold.

    He was a good kid, if not a little dumb. I think the grocery store humored him. Besides, gold is valuable, so they may have been just ripping him off.

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  • [–] 8 points 3 hours ago (1 child)

    If he hoarded his gold instead of spent it, he'd be up about 100% over the last five years alone. Only crypto would've given that kind of return in the same time span, with far greater risk.

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  • [+] -9 points 4 hours ago* (2 children)

    The irony of being called an idiot by someone so dim that "taking the bars to the grocery store" is the best they could come up with. I'm not even offended.

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