The Man with the Golden Truck

[budanski]

Strategypage (http://www.strategypage.com/gallery/default.asp?target=goldentruck.htm)

In early July,*police in southern Iraq stopped a fuel truck*for having improper license plates. The truck was impounded. The next day, an anonymous caller offered a local Iraqi official a $10,000 bribe to release the truck. The official turned down the bribe and went to examine the truck. He found strange looking metal bricks inside the otherwise empty fuel tank.**He then took the truck over to*City Hall so the local US Marine detatchment could check it out. These pictures show that the fuel truck was carrying a small fortune in gold.

http://www.webmutants.com/strategypage/goldentruck1.jpg
http://www.webmutants.com/strategypage/goldentruck2.jpg

[Seiyuuki]

It's better new to know that the official turn down the bribe and did the honest thing.

[martinexsquaddie]

i wonder how many gold bars can you get in a bergan?

[Seraphim]

Enough if you can get away with it ;)

I wonder what happened to the soldiers who got caught trying to take some money they found.

[hood]

Looks like those guys had seen a certain George Clooney movie.

[Chet Mystery]

Nah Hood, in that movie, the tanker truck was filled with milk, remember ;)

[Fioraon]

Maybe they were working on a second one and got cought in the act.

[hood]

exactly! they figured the americans would have seen 3 kings, and instantly dismissed the tanker truck saying "it's probably just milk in there, be on your way". :)

[martinexsquaddie]

if it had been stoped by my old Battalion there would'nt have been a gold bar left in sight :lol:

[glofs]

You can have'm...


Gold-coloured bars seized by U.S. forces in Iraq appear to be melted-down shell casings made of brass, the White House said in a report obtained yesterday.

http://www.agonist.org/archives/006382.html

[Apogee]

Talk about anti-climatic

[TFG]

He shoulda taken that bribe... that truck looks ****ty anyways.....

[ShotOver]

Why would you offer someone a bride to give back a truck filled with melted brass casings? :|

[Longbranch]

Gold-coloured bars seized by U.S. forces in Iraq appear to be melted-down shell casings made of brass, the White House said in a report obtained yesterday.
It looks to me like the "shell casing story" is a lie so the gold could be kept by someone higher up the ladder.

1. Why would anyone go through the trouble of smelting brass or copper and put it into the shape of gold bars? No other metal is poured into forms with a beveled edge other than gold.

2. Look at the photo again of the guy in the back of the truck. Copper has a much darker colour than the bars shown. Look at how much dirt and grime is in there too: brass is bright and yellow when polished, but in the back of that truck brass would look dark and almost muddy in colour. If someone went through the trouble to smelt brass into bars, why would they polish it?

I had 200 ounces of gold in my hands this morning. Unless that photo's been retouched with Photoshop, it looks like gold to me. Half a billion dollars in found treasure seems a pretty obvious reason for the higher-ups to lie about what was found.

[budanski]

Looks real to me....

http://www.noisedesignlab.com/buddy/gold.jpg
http://www.noisedesignlab.com/buddy/gold2.jpg

[He219]

And, according to a recent report (http://www.alaska-freegold.com/wwwboard/messages/758.html) to lawmakers, even the gold-colored bars, which were seized with much fanfare by U.S. forces, appear to be melted-down shell casings made mostly of copper. Disappointed American officials had believed they were bullion worth $600 million or more.

AL HATR, Iraq - At Jaguar South, the jagged shards of exploded shell cartridges shimmer like gold in the morning sun — and that's pretty much what they are, says Capt. Mike Kimball.

Iraqis have been blowing up the tank and shell rounds stored in Iraqi army warehouses here and scavenging the bits of brass to sell in northern Iraq (news - web sites).

"That's $2 right there, lying on the ground," Kimball says, pointing to two brass cartridges. More than 300 looters have been arrested.

But now the U.S. Army and a British mine-clearing group are teaming up to turn robbers into workers, paying residents to clean — instead of loot — the fields of brass.

[Longbranch]

Yes, and then the Iraqi looters fired up a smelting foundry, and poured the molten brass into molds designed for gold bars… all during conditions of limited electricity. Then someone else went to great lengths to hide and smuggle it in a tanker truck. All of this effort for brass. Think about that for a minute.

I did a web search and found a price for brass at $1,070/ton. Was there more than 10 tons of brass in the truck to be worth the $10,000 bribe offered?

http://www.metalworld.com/a/view/2001.html

Brass is yellow and gold is yellow. The quickest way to confirm what the bars are made of is to just weigh one. Gold is far denser and heavier. Because some looters were taking empty shell casings doesn't preclude someone else wasn't trying to smuggle out a half billion in gold.

[Royal]

The British armed forces strip ranges and field firing areas of brass for salvage after exercises. The Range Conducting Officer has to sign to confirm this has been done.

I've seen locals in the Balkans chasing CVR(T) and Warrior down a live firing lane to collect the 7.62 and 30mm brass, and shepherds in Turkey and the 'stan following gun groups to do the same thing.

Brass has scrap value, not as much as gold but it is still valuable.

[Herrmannek]

If you look closely on the lower corner of the piramide at top brick you can see green coating with is clear mark that we are dealing with coper oxydes so the bricks on the photo are made of brass.
http://www.noisedesignlab.com/buddy/gold2.jpg