A New York City couple known on social media for their magnet fishing adventures in local waterways says they recently came across an unexpected find: a safe containing two stacks of wet $100 dollars.
James Kane and Barbie Agostini, who have documented a variety of magnet fishing discoveries on their YouTube channel, told Spectrum News NY1 on Saturday that after reeling in a muddy safe from a Queens pond on Friday, they were shocked to discover stacks of hundred-dollar bills estimated to be worth $100,000.
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“I said, ‘Baby, this is not possible, Holy’some profanity’… and we pulled it out, and it was like two stacks of freaking hundreds,” Kane explained to the reporter. “Big stacks.”
Video captured the couple’s muddy find and the half-shredded hundred-dollar bills inside.
Kane, who said the couple had previously discovered several old safes, said he expected to find simply empty plastic bags that usually carried money, but was surprised to find genuine cash inside.
Agostini stated that she thought Kane was joking when he revealed the contents of the safe.
“Once I saw the actual dollars and the security ribbons, I lost it,” she stated.
Kane claimed they contacted the NYPD because he suspected there might be some “legalities” involved. Unable to determine the owner of the likely stolen safe, Kane and Agostini assert that the police allowed them to retain the entire treasure.
“I guess the finders-keepers rule has worked for us,” Kane stated.
Unfortunately, the bills were “soaking wet” and “pretty much destroyed,” Kane explained.
CBS News has contacted the NYPD for comment.
Kane told NY1 that he and Agostini began magnet fishing because they were bored during the coronavirus pandemic.
“We call it the poor man’s treasure hunting,” he explained to the broadcaster.
Kane claims they’ve recovered everything from World War II grenades and nineteenth-century firearms to a motorcycle and a handbag containing foreign money, pearls, and gold jewels. Their YouTube channel, which documents their exploits, has over 4,000 subscribers and about 1.4 million views.
In recent months, people fishing with magnets have found even more startling discoveries. In May, a magnet fisherman retrieved a human skull padlocked to an exercise dumbbell from a New Orleans river.
In April, a person used a magnet to search for metal objects in a Georgia creek, finding a firearm and the lost belongings of a couple who had died there more than ten years earlier.
In March, magnet fisherman discovered an explosive weapon in the Charles River in Massachusetts. CBS News Boston reported the discovery of another explosive weapon in the same neighborhood a few days earlier.
