James Kane of New York City is a fisherman. But he does not eat what he catches.
Instead of catching fish, he uses powerful magnets attached to long ropes to “fish” for junk in the city’s lakes, rivers and ponds.
Sometimes he pulls out trash, like old car parts.
But recently, Kane said he found a heavy metal box called a safe. People use safes to store valuable items such as money, gold coins, jewelry or important documents. A safe has a door that swings open and can be locked.
Last Friday, Kane and his girlfriend, Barbi Agostini, were magnet fishing in a lake in the Queens area of New York City. They pulled out the safe, opened it and found soaking wet bags of $100 bills.
They recorded their catch on video.
“Oh, that’s money,” Kane said in the video of the discovery. “Oh, it is! Stacks of bills, dude!”
“Oh, my God!” Agostini says.
The pair said they found almost $100,000 in hundred-dollar bills. However, many of the bills had decomposed and some were stuck together. It is not clear how many of the bills can be recovered and used again.
Many of the bills showed recent markings - Kane said he plans to bring the found money to the Bureau of Printing and Engraving in Washington, D.C. to redeem it.
When Kane and Agostini found the money, they called the police to investigate. According to a police statement, the money was not connected to a crime, so the couple is permitted to keep it. But the police warned the money was in very bad condition.
“I guess you call it a finders keepers thing,” Kane said.
Kane and Agostini record their fishing outings and put the results on social media services such as YouTube.
They have found bicycles, guns, jewelry and even a war weapon known as a grenade. They often find themselves calling police. Some videos show police taking possession of the dangerous objects. One showed them giving police a safe filled with credit cards.
Magnet fishers work all over the country. They find things many others do not because they use very powerful magnets and ropes. These things let them reach parts of water far away from land. One magnet fisher found a human skull attached to an exercise weight in New Orleans, Louisiana. Another, in Georgia, found a gun and the belongings of two people who were killed nine years ago.
Many people see the popularity of the magnet fishers on YouTube and wonder if the videos are real. In comments, they wonder if the finds are staged, or placed in the water ahead of time to make for a good video.
Kane said he may just be lucky.
“I have seen and worked with other magnet fishers that can hit a spot for three months, and I’ll come along and throw the same magnet and get and find something that they’ve been trying to get the entire time,” he said. “I personally can’t explain that.”
Kane and Agostini have ideas for how to spend their $100,000. They plan to buy a new vehicle and more equipment so they can make better videos of their magnet fishing adventures.
I’m Dan Friedell.
