Casting a line for fish can catch you supper. New Yorker James Kane cast a line with a powerful magnet and caught cash.
Kane has pulled up bicycles, jewelry, guns, and more from New York City’s waterways. He once found a safe full of credit cards. (He handed it over to police.) On May 31, he pulled up another safe. This one was stuffed with $100 bills.
Kane and girlfriend Barbi Agostini went magnet fishing at a lake in Flushing Meadows Corona Park. Magnet fishers heave powerful magnets attached to long ropes into water. Some are capable of staying latched to objects weighing 2,000 pounds. They drag the lines through water and muck, hauling up artifacts that would likely be missed by a beachcomber with a metal detector.
Kane tossed his magnet about 80 feet out. He felt a hard click. That signals the magnet has attached to some kind of buried treasure—or trash.
He lifted a safe out of the water. Agostini filmed the moment when he opened the slimy box and pulled out bags of gunk-covered money.
The two estimate the safe contained as much as $100,000 in stacks of bills. The container gave no clues about its rightful owner.
Kane and Agostini called the police to report their discovery. Officers said there was no evidence of a crime.
“They gave it to us,” Kane says. “I guess you call it a finders keepers thing.” The bad news is the money is in such poor condition that its value cannot be determined.
Agostini observes that the cash stacked at the top and bottom of the safe was more exposed to water and showed the most damage. The bills were “coming off in pieces.”
The magnet fishers plan to take the mucky moolah to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in Washington, D.C. Kane and Agostini hope to salvage some of it.
What will they purchase if they can use some of the loot? Maybe a new vehicle. And they want to upgrade the equipment they use to film Kane’s magnet fishing adventures.
The Bible teaches that God pursues lost sinners similar to how a woman diligently searches for a lost coin. God cleans us by forgiving us and clothing us in His righteousness. Jesus says there is joy before the angels of God when even one sinner repents. (Luke 15:8-10)
