“$40 million…a small fortune” — inflation has gotten out of hand!
How porous is the CIA's interview process that they couldn't validate the guy's military discharge status?
The type of people Intelligence agencies need and use to accomplish their goals are also the type of people who tend to do these things.
Exactly, honest people would fail at such missions. A few million lost here and there is the cost of doing business
What a disingenuous way of thinking. Not falling for this is the basis of much religious text by the way. Splitting baby in the middle, etc.<p>But on the other hand, being a useful fool that blindly does anything for profit, Do seem in line with the people working in tech for the last decade.<p>Yes, the CIA is a corrupt today as "tech". And no that is not ok nor required, or it ever was like that.
lol "the extralegal spy agency has become as corrupt as the search engines!"
All spies are bastards. That's sort of their job. In the CIA it might speak more ill of the guy who was arrested that he <i>was</i> arrested than that he (allegedly) inflated his credentials and might have bilked the military for leave pay.
When it comes to stories involving intelligence agencies I generally assume that I’m not getting the whole or accurate story.
How porous is the approving manager/chain that someone can request 300kg of gold bars and no one knows why and they just approve it any way.
I imagine a big difference is at most jobs the worst that will happen is you get fired, at the CIA you go to jail for the rest of your life.
Imagine if government approvals were that easy for things the country actually needed, like safe nuclear energy and bullet trains.
the CIA told him to make that part of his identity and then burned him with it<p>isn’t it obvious?<p>not being charged for the <i>forty million dollars</i> in gold and foreign currency missing, no explanation on why they are even looking for something that was rightly paid out as expenses, no explanation on what kind of expenses those could be to begin with to incur this much, no explanation on why the government wasn't using US dollars to pay a government employee expenses. Its a complete red herring because some client state is paying off a debt, CIA just needs this guy burned
> no explanation on what kind of expenses those could be<p>Isn't it obvious that the gold was pay a bribe. The only thing I'm surprised about is the value. That's A LOT of money for a single pay-off or bribe. It seems more than what would conceivably be paid to an individual because spy agencies tend to prefer to pay-as-you-go with individuals. Each round of documents, actions or whatever gets a payment.<p>So I suspect this was intended to either buy a one-time, career-ending action from someone <i>very</i> senior or, more likely, the ongoing cooperation of a company, gang or small nation-state. It's hard to guess but looking over major events in that time frame, Venezuela might be a good bet. The odd part is that the gold was in his house. Aside from the dumb trade craft of keeping it in the first place anyone would look, why is the gold even in CONUS?<p>One imagines the intended recipient resides overseas, so I'm trying to picture the fake scenario this senior executive used to plausibly convince anyone he personally needs to take possession of more gold than several people can comfortably carry somewhere around rural Langley, VA. He can't carry it on any commercial flight and It's not like he's going to schlepp it himself in his family sedan to put it on a secret CIA cargo flight. The CIA has people for that. Also, someone that senior isn't generally doing any direct case officer work. They manage case officers who manage field assets. So many interesting questions we'll never get answers to.
That's ~280kg of gold if anyone wonders
It would make such a fantastic set of barbell plates.
Or a really cool scuba diving weight belt.
Gold is pretty soft. You would have to cut it to 10 carat, so there’s be even more to go around!
Nah literally crushing plates would feel so good. Worth the effort to melt it again every few sessions
Having to handle the plates with care and the damage they’d take regardless would add to the charm.
You could encase them in plastic to prevent damage and mask them for some run off the mill equipment. Nobody would suspect anything without prior knowledge.
1kg gold bars are tiny.
The article says "approximately 303 gold bars, each of which weighed approximately one kilogram"<p>I guess the gold bars aren't uniformly sized, which would agree with your ~280kg number.
~ 617 lbs.
If this were a Jason Bourne movie, it was the CIA that put the gold bars there.
I was just looking for something to watch tonight. Thanks for the recommendation!
Ehh, more like Rush would've been found dead like Abbott after declaring "I'm a patriot" to internal CIA. What's tantalizing about Bourne is something about who we are and capable of, regardless of conditioning... both good and bad.
> From last November to March, the court papers say, Mr. Rush asked for, and received, “a significant quantity of foreign currency and tens of millions of dollars in gold bars for work-related expenses.”<p>- "I need these bars to pay off this Russian spy who will tell us Putin's nuclear codes password"<p>Comes back a week later<p>- "His password is 12345"<p>- "How do we know the story is not fake?"<p>- "What am I going to get a signed receipt from him? Duh..."
Guy sounds like a dragon. What's the deal with the watches though?
Watches are the commodity of choice for corruption in some circles. I know people in jewelry and a significant portion of their transactions are watches to Chinese businessmen, formerly through Hong Kong, now through Singapore. They're high value items with razor thin margins.
I imagine watches are more liquid than gold bars
Sounds like he was most likely involved in some serious shit that was off the books and somehow it came to light. His boss is probably aware of what it was but no one will admit shit. It went awry and he is left holding the bag.<p>Gold and money for an operation that could have been to anything from funding armed rebellion to god only knows.
$40m+ in an expense account based in gold bars is absolutely crazy. CIA agents must have access to untold resources if this is seen as a somewhat regular 4 month spend. Seems it is, given that they seemingly weren't concerned about the $40+ million being taken out, but where it was being held.
$40M is a trivial amount of money to everyone involved in this matter. It’s only a few hundred 1kg bars.
The "resources" are off the books, it must be just the tip of the iceberg.
I thought this was baseless speculation, but from TFA:<p>> [he] asked for, and received, “a significant quantity of foreign currency and tens of millions of dollars in gold bars for work-related expenses.
Yeah, this reads like right out of "Burn notice".
The CIA legitimately engages in bribery and hard asset payments. Note that the CIA approved his request and gave him these assets (or at least many of them - the paragraph below doesn't specify the amount).<p>> From last November to March, the court papers say, Mr. Rush asked for, and received, “a significant quantity of foreign currency and tens of millions of dollars in gold bars for work-related expenses.”<p>Possibly the question here is, why did Rush take them home. It's always possible Rush was just sloppy and undisciplined, which would also reflect a cultural problem. Many people have been found with secret documents in their homes.
If he still has them, it’s probably ‘garden variety’ workplace embezzlement.<p>Make up some sources, pretend to pay them, cash the payments.<p>He probably just got sloppy, and it got too obvious.
Archive.ph/archive.today failing me to bypass paywall, is everyone commenting on the title? Or you all have NYT subscriptions? Or you know of some other bypass?
I get 24 hour access through my local library. Here, have a gift link <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/27/us/politics/fbi-arrest-cia-official-gold-bars.html?unlocked_article_code=1.l1A.9kid.cWmf8kqF0KRT&smid=url-share" rel="nofollow">https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/27/us/politics/fbi-arrest-ci...</a>
Many community libraries offer free NYTimes access to their patrons.
CIA: <i>Corruption Institute of America</i>
Huh. I’m actually glad to see the IC fragmenting like this.
Should’ve used Monero or something lmao
I'm guessing they decided they don't like the guy anymore? The CIA is very corrupt as an institution and things like this run rampant. Billions of dollars go unaccounted for a year at the CIA.
A couple of weeks ago there was a story that the CIA raided the office of the director of the NSA and seized information regarding the CIA. Trump was in China at the time. About a week later the NSA director resigns. I waited for it to turn into a major story and get some kind of explanation, but silence.<p>It seems like an extraordinary story and I don't understand why there isn't a hullabaloo. Did I hallucinate it? Who runs this country?
Anna Paulina Luna is the only one claiming that the CIA raided the office of the DNI. No other trustworthy sources are reporting this and there's been no independent verification. Anna Paulina Luna is a lunatic who says outlandish things with no regards to truth.
There might be a mix up on the details.<p>The FBI raided the home of John Bolton who was a former National Security Advisor for the first Trump administration. (not directly part of the NSA and definitely not the director of the NSA). Bolton has become a vocal critic of Trump since he was fired in Sept 2019.<p>Trump's DOJ has a track record of prosecuting Trump's vocal critics. eg. Former FBI director James Comey and New York attorney general Letitia James<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosecution_of_John_Bolton" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosecution_of_John_Bolton</a><p>There has been no legal action taken against current NSA director General Joshua M. Rudd or his recent predecessor, William J. Hartman
The DNI, not the NSA.
Because nobody reputable reported on it?
> Who runs this country?<p>American Thought Control.<p>Crazy crackpot schizos aren’t the only ones listening to the voices in their heads.
> millions of dollars in gold bars for work-related expenses.<p>Hey, handing over millions of $$s to local warlords is a business expense...
okay now the Director!
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So what is that, like 10 gold bars?<p>EDIT: it's 240. but still, they were worth a lot less not that long ago...
This seems absolutely crazy. Probably Fort Knox should be inventoried, might indeed not be anything there!
<a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-fort-knox-gold-steal-b2973930.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...</a>
This is different than that and scant on pertinent details<p>It says he received it as compensation for expenses, not that it was ever in some government vault. This is additional gold and foreign currency that an agency had, not the reserve.<p>It then says<p>> When the C.I.A. conducted a review of where the gold and currency were stashed<p>Why would they do that if it was compensation for expenses<p>He wasn't charged for that, and the phrasing doesn't suggest it was supposed to be remitted to the government<p>if the CIA didn't have a history of being involved in shady shit like this that already explains everything, this would be weird<p>instead it looks like he's got burned over his necessary use of fibbed identity
Maybe this is part of the shadow money. CIA has been working with business people since the beginning of Cold War and I wouldn't be surprised that they have deep roots in the financial world -- after all both Intelligence and Finance need globalization.
The cover of national security has allowed a certain type of organized crime to proliferate to the point it's breaking society.
There's a book that ties into this sort of thing - Gold Warriors [1]. It about how, post WWII, the US recovered a bunch of Gold looted from China and used it to set up an anti-communist slush fund.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/249237.Gold_Warriors" rel="nofollow">https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/249237.Gold_Warriors</a>
I don't think it's connected to this specific event, but there's a lot of lore about the CIA moving gold in/out of Afghanistan, Iraq and others during war time.
I used to read a lot about Michele Sindona who was supposed to be connected to the Mafia and the intelligence community. His currency trading firm was one of the first to trade the Eurodollar contracts back in the 60s, IIRC.<p>I think intelligence and finance really go hand in hand. It makes so much sense -- you see, the intelligence community really hates the congress or whatever to snoop around its operations before approving the budget -- wouldn't it a lot easier to just earn your own $$? And with all the information the intelligence agencies control, it is almost trivial to make quick money in finance. Last but not the least, wouldn't banker be the perfect cover for spies? They wear nice suites, too.
They want globalization to make their jobs easier. In no sense do they "need" it. Whether we want a world where the desires of intelligence and finance are blindly prioritized is an open question. For my part the answer is obviously no.
I think most ordinary people would say No, but most of us do not have a say in any important things. They put up the facade of voting while all the important stuffs are decided within the circles.<p>I think it really makes sense to consider ourselves to be just intelligent cattle -- they still tolerate us because they need us to turn natural resources into machinery, weapon, insights and other stuffs they need, but once AI and robots keep up, they can probably get rid of 90% of us.
It’s almost certainly grift. If it were official, the arrest would have been scrubbed.
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Gold is the "bitcoin" of yesterday, in the sense that it is untraceable, anonymous and yet high value enough to be worth it.<p>And it can be made to disappear in a hurry, if you have to: <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2011/10/03/140815154/dissolve-my-nobel-prize-fast-a-true-story" rel="nofollow">https://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2011/10/03/140815154/d...</a>
None of those points match bitcoin. What you are describing is more like tornado cash or similar stuff which are really really banned when interfacing with banks or similar institutions.
> untraceable, anonymous and yet high value enough to be worth it<p>Literally none of these is true of Bitcoin.