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| Iraq |
| Gold bars pique 173rdâs interest at checkpoint |
| 2003-05-27 |
| U.S. soldiers seized $80 million to $100 million worth of crudely made, non-minted gold bars Sunday and detained three Iraqis heading east, possibly for the Iranian border, officials said Monday. Soldiers of the 173rd Airborne Brigade, manning a routine checkpoint set up on the outskirts of Kirkuk, impounded the truck Sunday and detained the three occupants because the driverâs paperwork and identification did not match the vehicle registration, according to Maj. Kevin Petit, executive officer of the brigade based in Vicenza, Italy.âThat was the probable cause,â Petit said. "Probable cause? I got your probable cause right here, pal!" Inside the bed of the turquoise Mercedes dump truck were 999 bars of gold, each weighing about 22 pounds, said Maj. Josslyn Aberle, a spokeswoman for the Armyâs 4th Infantry Division, which oversees military operations in northern Iraq. The military based its estimate of value on the weight of the gold. The three occupants, two Kurds and one Turkmen, told the arresting soldiers and later intelligence officers they had been paid $300 cash to transport what they thought was melted down copper, Petit said. They still were in U.S. custody Monday afternoon for interrogations, he added. Three more "innocent" truckdrivers. The truck left Baghdad on Saturday and was on its way to As Sulaymaniya, near the border with Iran, he said. The soldiers stopped it Sunday about 10 a.m. at a checkpoint in the south side of town, which has been the site of previous checkpoints, he said. For now, military leaders are leaning toward believing the three menâs story because no weapons were found in the truck, the trio did not put up any resistance when the dump truck was stopped or impounded, and the gold bars were not concealed in any way, Petit said. Either they are really dumb, or too clever for their own good The gold will be analyzed to determine its purity and exact value, and then sent to the Central Iraqi Treasury, Aberle said. A reservist assigned to the 173rd who works in a gold and jewelry shop in the civilian world told military officials that the find likely was 21-carat gold, Petit said. God bless those reservists. You can find an expert in any field if you need one. The 173rd soldiers who stopped and seized the booty were on patrol Monday afternoon when officials briefed reporters and were unavailable for interviews. Two days earlier, soldiers stopped another Mercedes dump truck on its way toward the Syrian border hauling a load of 2,000 gold bars that look very similar to the ones seized Monday, he said. Note that this is a second gold shipment, not the same one reported last week. Officials canât say yet whether the two incidents are linked. âBut they do look similar,â Petit said. Yah think? None of the drivers had proper documentation and gold is not a natural resource in Iraq, making the transport of so many bars highly suspicious, Aberle said. A master of the understatement, our Josslyn. Clearly a DINFOS trained killer. |
| Posted by:Steve |
| #9 >>Inside the bed of the turquoise Mercedes dump truck were 999 bars of gold Hmmm... Who's holding the one bar needed for an even 1,000 ?? ;) |
| Posted by: Showme 2003-05-27 23:16:09 |
| #8 Should have commented on this before: if I were asked to drive a dump truck full of "copper" from Iraq to Iran, I'd damn sure want more than $300 for the job. And if I could tell the difference between copper and gold, then ... |
| Posted by: Steve White 2003-05-27 18:49:54 |
| #7 and about those reservists... "YOU'RE DAMN RIGHT YOU CAN!" ThankYou. -DeviantSaint The horns hold up the halo. (US Army Reservist & Geo-political Analyst) |
| Posted by: DeviantSaint 2003-05-27 16:32:59 |
| #6 Fred---Who owns the "copper" is who holds the "copper." For the Post-war criminal element it is Shock and Aurusâ¢! |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2003-05-27 15:30:54 |
| #5 What's interesting about this is that one load went toward Syria - snagged. One load went toward Iran - also snagged. How many loads went toward Jordan, Soddy Arabia, and Turkey, and haven't been snagged? Who owns all that "copper"? |
| Posted by: Fred 2003-05-27 15:07:01 |
| #4 ... they had been paid $300 cash to transport what they thought was melted down copper ... And of course in that part of the world, no one can tell the difference between a bar of copper and a bar of gold. |
| Posted by: Steve White 2003-05-27 14:15:11 |
| #3 Just curious where the Iraqi National Gold Reserve is? Every country has one. If it's missing, how come none of the Central Bank officials are screaming about it? Perhaps it's not missing to them, just to us? |
| Posted by: Chuck 2003-05-27 11:10:56 |
| #2 The rats are restless. The gold was on its way to Iran. Must be a bummer to loose your bribe money as well as your nest egg. What's the penalty in sharia for 'Unable to pay bribe'? No tea. |
| Posted by: Lucky 2003-05-27 10:36:38 |
| #1 I wonder what they melted down to make them. |
| Posted by: tu3031 2003-05-27 10:24:06 |