A couple of “magnet fishing” enthusiasts say they pulled up a safe containing an estimated $100,000 from a New York lake.
James Kane and Barbie Agostini threw a rope with a magnet into a lake in Flushing Meadows Corona Park in Queens on Friday and pulled up the safe.
Upon opening the secured box, they said they found it stuffed with bundles of water-damaged $100 bills.
They told NY1 police told them the safe wasn’t linked to any crime and that they were allowed to keep the money.
The BBC has approached the New York Police Department (NYPD) for comment.
“We have found plenty of safes before,” Mr Kane said. “And then I saw the numbers and thought: ‘This is not possible.'”
“We pulled it out and it was big stacks of freaking hundreds,” he added. “These are thick stacks – they’re soaking wet, they’re pretty much destroyed.”
“There were no IDs, no way to find the original person, in the safe,” Mrs Agostini said. “[The police] were like: ‘Well, congratulations!'”
Magnet fishing involves trailing a line with a strong magnet through lakes and rivers and seeing what is pulled up.
The couple said they began magnet fishing during the Covid-19 pandemic.
They said they have previously found World War Two-era grenades, nineteenth-century guns and a full-size motorbike.
Only after she saw the bills themselves and the bank security ribbons around the money labeled “$100” she finally believed it was real.
“I lost it,” she said.
The money was soaking wet and “destroyed” with lake sludge covering the stacks of bills.
It’s not clear if they will be able to cash the money, but the Bureau of Engraving and Printing says, if more than 50% of the currency is identifiable, a lawful holder of the notes ‘may receive a redemption at full value,’ according to website.
