At least four of the gold bars the FBI discovered during their search of New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez’s home are linked to a businessman, who is a co-defendant in the case.
Fred Daibes is accused of a bribery scheme allegedly involving the Democrat senior senator from New Jersey.
The Bob Menendez Gold Bar Problem Is Looking Even Worse: NBC New York reports that the gold that feds found in the senator’s house was reportedly stolen from a man accused of bribing him, Fred Daibes. https://t.co/hYd7tlC2Bb
— New York Magazine (@NYMag) December 5, 2023
In 2013, Daibes reported to police he was the victim of an armed robbery and he asked police to recover the gold bars stolen from him.
In the 2013 robbery, Daibes reported $500,000 in cash and 22 gold bars were stolen, Edgewater police records show. Police later caught four suspects with the stolen goods.
To get the gold bars back, Daibes had to sign “property release forms” certifying the gold bars belonged to him, the records show.
From NBC New York:
“Each gold bar has its own serial number,” Daibes said to investigators in a 2014 transcript made by prosecutors and police who recovered — and returned to Daibes — the stolen valuables. “They’re all stamped…you’ll never see two stamped the same way.”
A decade later, the FBI said four of the gold bars with unique serial numbers had come into the possession of Sen. Menendez and his wife, Nadine. Two bars were found during the FBI’s search of their Clifton home, while an indictment stated that Nadine Menendez gave the other two other gold bars to a jeweler to sell, but photos of those two bars were recovered.
In the 2023 bribery indictment against the Democratic senator and Daibes, prosecutors included photos of some of the alleged bribes found in Menendez’s home, including four gold bars. The serial numbers of the four gold bars in the bribery indictment appear to be an exact match to four of the gold bars Daibes certified as stolen and returned to him in the 2013 robbery case.
For example, a Swiss Bank Corporation gold bar with serial number 590005 that the FBI said it seized from the senator’s home in a 2023 search was also reported stolen by Daibes — and returned to him — a decade earlier. Daibes’ signature and initials appear on the evidence log which included each specific gold bars with corresponding serial number.
“All of this spells bad news for Senator Menendez because the chain of custody – it appears – is going to be really easy to prove up,” said NBC legal analyst Danny Cevallos.
Join the conversation!
Please share your thoughts about this article below. We value your opinions, and would love to see you add to the discussion!