Posted on 02/04/2005 10:54:43 AM PST by crushelits
The search for $180,000 in missing nickels ended in the back yard of a Miami-Dade County house today.
A joint task force including the DEA, FBI (news - web sites), Immigration and Customs Enforcement and detectives from the Miami-Dade County Police Department, found the nickels buried in the back yard of a home in an area near Miami known as the Redlands.
Law enforcement officials searched the home this morning and found nothing. They searched a smaller house behind the main residence and reportedly found 88 plants believed to be marijuana.
When agents went over the back yard with metal detectors, they hit on the more than 3 million nickels. Officials said the coins were buried in a wooden box, covered in a thick clear plastic tarp buried in a 4-foot deep hole. The coins were still inside Federal Reserve (news - web sites) bags, according to police.
The nickels left the Federal Reserve Bank in New Jersey Dec. 17. Three days later the empty truck was found in Fort Pierce. The driver, Angel Mendoza was missing. Police have still not found Mendoza. They believe he is out of the country.
Police are interviewing another man about the plants they found.
hahahaha...
Nickles and nickle bags.
''The initial estimate of the cost of the task-force investigation was put at $800,000 by a Treasury spokesman.''
I still remember getting a late fee notice mailed to me by the library. The late fee was 25 cents. The stamp was 37 cents.
Think about this...how would you ever get rid of the loot? You can walk into a cheap casino...and just play $200 a day in coins...and hope to cash them in...but thats about it. To walk into any bank and hand over $500 in nickles...just smells awful suspicious.
Is it uneconomic to spend $800K to recover $180K? I don't think so.
Allowing this fellow to get away with $180K would encourage future thefts.
It's called being nickeled and dimed to death! The government excels at it!
I've heard of 'dime bags'. Were these used to buy nickel bags?
$180,000 = 3.6 million nickels at 5 grams each = 18 metric tons. That's a lot of change.
No kidding, pal, they have to investigate a CRIME. It's one of the things governments do -- track down criminals. It's not supposed to turn a profit. It's designed to get criminals off the streets. If stolen property is recovered, great -- but that's NOT the primary objective!
Do you think governments should eschew going after rapists unless they can somehow turn a profit?
He was being sarcastic.
It's American coinage. How much is it in real tons?
I've got a really big problem with this story; 3,000,000 nickels would weigh 32,813 pounds and would need a very sturdy body of at least 4 feet by 6 feet in dimension. What sort of truck could carry this
18 metric tons = 19.8416036 short tons
18 metric tons = 17.7157175 long tons
Thanks! :-)
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