Posted on 06/20/2003 9:52:18 AM PDT by dead
On his current pay grade, Captain Brad Boyd would need to work for 209 years and seven months to earn the stack of $US100 bills piled on the table in front of him.
"It sure is a big stash of money," Captain Boyd said as he told how $US12.5 million ($18.6 million) came to be sitting on a sideboard in the presidential palace in Saddam Hussein's home town, Tikrit.
His patrol, surviving on four hours' sleep a night and attacked by rockets that night, was too tired to get excited by two farmhouses a few kilometres south-east of Tikrit.
Within minutes, four men were under arrest for carrying weapons, and a cursory search of the cluttered farmhouse was undertaken. The unit might even have gone on its way had it not been for the discovery of a pair of Russian-made night-vision goggles.
"That kind of made us suspicious," Captain Boyd said.
"Then we looked out back and saw this plot of land. You could see it had been dug over recently."
A shovel was produced and a box hauled from the earth. Captain Boyd said they found a few Iraqi dinars and some US dollars, "but not ridiculous amounts". Then a mine detector arrived, a second box was exhumed and things started to get "ridiculous".
"After that it was like an Easter egg hunt," he said.
There was no need to count the money, as a note had been left saying "$4,000,000". Another tin trunk was soon unearthed, containing another $4 million.
The elderly farmer denied it was his, saying he would not be living with eight sheep outside Tikrit if it was.
The identity of the likely owner was buried among the contents of several plastic food boxes. Inside each were enormous quantities of jewellery wrapped in tissue paper, diamond-encrusted watches and a box full of rings with rubies and emeralds.
Sifting through the jewellery, troops found an ID card with the 30-year-old photograph of a familiar face attached: Saddam's first wife, Sajida, ID No. 748102.
So what will happen to this little pile of loot, a tiny fraction of the billions stolen by Saddam and his family?
"Hard to say for sure right now," Captain Boyd said. "But I guess it goes back to the Iraqi people."
The Telegraph, London
Lol.
I've always been bothered by Islam's belief in polygamy.
There are probably other stashes of cash and jewels that might just be found if it becomes known that the guy whose land its on gets a small part of the take.
Next Airing: Saturday, Jun 21 @ 11am ET/PT
In 1988, Yaron Svoray began covertly searching the forest hills outside an ancient walled village along the French-German border, hunting for a treasure in uncut diamonds buried in a foxhole by two American GIs in 1945--a treasure that carried a curse.
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