Tag: gold

This Is The Deep State On Parade Like A Naked Emperor

In the annals of Deep State WTF-ery, is there a stranger case than CIA officer David Rush turning up with $40-million in 303 one-kilogram gold bars, plus $2-million in cash, plus a stash of 30 mostly Rolex watches?

Well, yeah, the stranger story is how the guy got hired by the CIA in the first place.

Rush was arrested on Monday, May 18, by an FBI SWAT team at his home in Loudoun County, VA. Agents searched the house all day long and found the stash. Rush is currently charged with theft of public money and allegedly falsifying his military and academic credentials to obtain federal employment benefits, including roughly $77,000 in improper military leave pay. He’s scheduled to make a federal court appearance in Alexandria today.

Rush first applied for a job at the CIA in March 2006. He claimed to have a bachelor’s degree in math from Clemson University and a master’s from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI). He was rejected. He reapplied later that same year. Bumped again. He reapplied again in 2009, adding a new credential: that he’d been a US Navy test pilot and flight trainer. This time, he was hired.

Rush’s college credentials were found to be false, but it is unclear when that was discovered. Since he included them in his two earlier 2006 failed applications, why were they not flagged in his successful 2009 application? His claim of being a US Navy pilot was also found to be false (he was an information systems tech in his Navy service). The FBI affidavit unsealed recently details the pattern of lies across all applications.

Understand that CIA vetting procedures are supposed to be exceedingly rigorous. The process is stressful and invasive — many candidates drop out or are weeded out. The background check involves interviews with practically everybody who knows the applicant going back decades, his criminal history, work, financial history, education, military service. The applicant gets a polygraph exam. Even after getting hired, monitoring continues.

Rush was hired at the very start of the Obama admin; Leon Panetta was the newly appointed CIA Director. Wouldn’t you like to hear him ‘splain how David Rush managed to get hired? Was somebody smoothing his way in? Rush rose to become a senior executive service (SES) officer with a top-secret (TS/SCI) security clearance. His exact duties, the division he worked for, his day-to-day responsibilities have not been disclosed.

Rush allegedly requested the gold and foreign currency from the CIA for “work-related expenses” between November 2025 and March 2026. The agency later could not account for the assets or locate records explaining their official purpose. A search of a storage locker at CIA connected to Rush turned up only a small amount of the requisitioned cash.

“There is a whole process that we go through to get that money. I don’t just walk into the logistics office and say ‘Excuse me, I need $100,000 tomorrow.’ There is a form I have to fill out. It’s not a bank vault you walk into. It doesn’t work like that.” — Tracy Walder, 46, a former FBI special agent and CIA officer, quoted in The New York Post.

Wouldn’t you assume that some higher-up CIA officer would have to sign off on such a colossal requisition of gold and money? (And where does the CIA get so much gold on-demand?) Perhaps the very Director of the CIA approved it — which would be John Ratcliffe through 2025 up to right now. Doesn’t he have some ‘splainin’ to do? (Was Rush set-up? Was this a sting?)

Assuming Rush spent some period of time as an entry-level CIA employee, when did his rise to SES level happen? John Brennan became CIA Director in early 2013 (the start of Barack Obama’s second term). What were David Rush’s relations with John Brennan? Was Brennan his mentor? Does the gold stash have any connection with the current legal problems of John Brennan and other former high officials involved in the long-running “grand conspiracy” case about the attempted overthrow of a president?

You might imagine that Rush’s phone and computers were seized in the May 18th raid on his house — though it’s unlikely he used such conventional channels for black ops chatter. It’s conceivable, though, that any alt-communications of his were captured by the vast national security surveillance apparatus, and that DNI Tulsi Gabbard might have come across them this past year. How else might Director Ratcliffe have been tipped off?

This story is not going away. The scale of the grift is spectacular and vivid — 303 gold bars! — like a Hollywood movie. Rush’s explanation of “work-related expenses” sounds preposterous. If the requisitions were made serially, over several months, as appears, then the agency had more than one opportunity to review and question them.

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Former Senior CIA Officer With Top-Secret Clearance ARRESTED After FBI Raid Home And Seize 300 Gold Bars Worth $40 Million — Plus $2 Million Cash And 35 Luxury Watches

A former senior CIA officer with top-secret security clearance has been arrested after federal agents raided his Virginia home and seized roughly 300 gold bars worth more than $40 million, along with approximately $2 million in cash and 35 luxury watches, mostly Rolexes.

The officer, identified as David Rush, who held a management position at the agency, now faces charges of criminal theft of public money.

According to NBC News, Rush allegedly used his position to request large amounts of gold and foreign currency, claiming they were for “work-related expenses,” only to allegedly divert and stash them at his Fairfax County residence.

On May 18, federal agents searched the home and walked out with the massive gold hoard. Investigators had earlier found only a portion of the funds in a storage space near his office.

Rush had requested the assets between November and March, according to an FBI affidavit.

The CIA’s own internal audit couldn’t account for the gold or significant foreign currency, prompting CIA Director John Ratcliffe to refer the matter to the FBI for criminal investigation.

More from NBC News:

Asked about Rush’s case, a CIA spokesperson said in a statement joint statement with the FBI that the FBI had arrested a person after a referral from the agency.

After a CIA internal investigation identified potential violations of the law, CIA Director John Ratcliffe referred the information to the FBI for a law enforcement investigation,” the written statement said. “The FBI is working closely with our partners at the CIA and the Department of Justice as we continue to investigate this matter fully. We are committed to following the facts, ensuring accountability, and pursuing justice in accordance with the law.”

The case raises questions about the effectiveness of the federal government’s security vetting, which is supposed to ensure intelligence officers or other government employees don’t betray the public trust or spy for foreign countries.

The U.S. government conducts background investigations on every prospective employee at the CIA and other agencies granted access to sensitive and secret information. And after employees are hired, the government continues to monitor their financial activities, travel, credit records and other information through automated checks to ensure they aren’t vulnerable to blackmail.

The Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency, which falls under the authority of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, oversees the background check program, known as “continuous vetting.” When the program flags a potential problem or anomaly in an employee’s records, officials investigate further.

It wasn’t clear how the investigation into Rush began, and it also wasn’t clear when he left the CIA. His home was raided just last week.

Rush is also accused of a long-running fraud scheme in which he allegedly falsified time sheets, inflated his hours, and lied about his background for nearly two decades to secure and maintain his high-level position and extra pay.

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India Panics, Further Tightens Gold Flows As Rupee Collapses

With the Rupee accelerating its declines to ever lower record lows against the dollar, Indian authorities have stepped up capital controls, focusing on curbing demand in the gold ‘exit’ route.

4 days ago, there were no signs of import duty hikes as Prime Minister Narendra Modi  issued a rare weekend appeal urging citizens to forgo gold purchases as well as unnecessary foreign travel in order to help hold up the currency..

2 days ago, tariffs were more than doubled on gold and silver imports to 15% and 6% respectively.

And today, they are doing even more with India now tightening the advance authorisation route, effectively capping how much gold individual exporters can bring in through that channel. 

A government notification stated that imports of bullion exceeding 100 kilograms would be subject to prior authorization, adding that any subsequent imports would only be granted after exports equivalent to 50% had been carried out.

The notification also introduced stricter checks for first-time applicants seeking permission to import gold under the scheme.

The government has also linked future import approvals to export performance.

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Brazil Quietly Shifts Away from the Dollar to Gold

The Banco Central do Brasil has raised gold’s share of reserves from 3.55% to 7.19% in just one year, effectively doubling its exposure and making gold the second-largest reserve asset after the US dollar, while total reserves stand at approximately $358.23 billion and the dollar’s share has declined to about 72%, marking a record low. This is not a marginal adjustment or routine diversification, it is a structural repositioning that reflects a growing unease with sovereign debt markets.

When a central bank reduces dollar exposure while increasing gold holdings, it is not acting randomly but responding to a shift in confidence, and this aligns directly with the broader trend we are witnessing globally as central banks collectively purchased roughly 863 tonnes of gold in 2025 and are expected to remain strong buyers into 2026. The driving forces behind this are not inflation in the traditional sense, but geopolitical fragmentation, the weaponization of reserves, and the realization that sovereign debt levels are no longer sustainable without continued central bank intervention.

Brazil’s move mirrors what we have been warning about for years, which is that capital flows, not trade balances, dictate the strength of currencies, and once confidence begins to erode in government debt, that capital begins to migrate into assets that are not someone else’s liability. Gold fulfills that role because it cannot be printed, defaulted on, or frozen by a foreign government, and this becomes critical in a world where sanctions and financial restrictions are increasingly used as political tools.

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Scientists mimicking the Big Bang accidentally turn lead into gold

Medieval alchemists dreamed of transmuting lead into gold.

Today, we know that lead and gold are different elements, and no amount of chemistry can turn one into the other.

But our modern knowledge tells us the basic difference between an atom of lead and an atom of gold: the lead atom contains exactly three more protons. So can we create a gold atom by simply pulling three protons out of a lead atom?

As it turns out, we can. But it’s not easy.

While smashing lead atoms into each other at extremely high speeds in an effort to mimic the state of the universe just after the Big Bang, physicists working on the ALICE experiment at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland incidentally produced small amounts of gold.

Extremely small amounts, in fact: a total of some 29 trillionths of a gram.

How to steal a proton

Protons are found in the nucleus of an atom. How can they be pulled out?

Well, protons have an electric charge, which means an electric field can pull or push them around. Placing an atomic nucleus in an electric field could do it.

However, nuclei are held together by a very strong force with a very short range, imaginatively known as the strong nuclear force. This means an extremely powerful electric field is required to pull out protons – about a million times stronger than the electric fields that create lightning bolts in the atmosphere.

Keep reading

Scientists mimicking the Big Bang accidentally turn lead into gold

Medieval alchemists dreamed of transmuting lead into gold.

Today, we know that lead and gold are different elements, and no amount of chemistry can turn one into the other.

But our modern knowledge tells us the basic difference between an atom of lead and an atom of gold: the lead atom contains exactly three more protons. So can we create a gold atom by simply pulling three protons out of a lead atom?

As it turns out, we can. But it’s not easy.

While smashing lead atoms into each other at extremely high speeds in an effort to mimic the state of the universe just after the Big Bang, physicists working on the ALICE experiment at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland incidentally produced small amounts of gold.

Extremely small amounts, in fact: a total of some 29 trillionths of a gram.

How to steal a proton

Protons are found in the nucleus of an atom. How can they be pulled out?

Well, protons have an electric charge, which means an electric field can pull or push them around. Placing an atomic nucleus in an electric field could do it.

However, nuclei are held together by a very strong force with a very short range, imaginatively known as the strong nuclear force. This means an extremely powerful electric field is required to pull out protons – about a million times stronger than the electric fields that create lightning bolts in the atmosphere.

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Startup Says It Can Transform Mercury into Gold

A Californian startup, Marathon Fusion, aims to produce gold through nuclear fusion by converting mercury-198 into gold-197 using neutron radiation from fusion reactors. Unlike particle accelerators like CERN’s Large Hadron Collider—which produce negligible amounts of gold at enormous costs—Marathon Fusion proposes using a standard fusion reactor fuel mix (deuterium and tritium) to create the necessary neutron flux, theoretically enabling substantial gold production. Their estimates, derived from a fusion reactor’s “digital twin,” suggest a plant could yield several tons of gold annually per gigawatt of thermal power. However, the feasibility of this process remains untested, as no commercial fusion reactors exist, and the gold produced would initially be radioactive, requiring careful management. Significant scientific, technological, and economic challenges must be addressed before this ambitious concept can lead to a modern-day gold rush.

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NGO Claims Mexican Cartel Tied to Mercury Trafficking

A new report from the NGO Environment Investigation Agency (EIA) claims that Mexico’s Cartel Jalisco New Generation (CJNG) is trafficking mercury to South America for its use in gold refining. The report comes just weeks after suspected CJNG gunmen stole more than 33 tons of gold concentrate from a mining company along a highway in Jalisco.

In their report Toxic Tons: Traffickers Leave No Stone Unturned, the EIA followed the trail of mercury from central Mexico to South America, where it is used in illegal mining operations. The group claims that the use of mercury for gold mining is a significant environmental polluter, as the mineral is mixed with gold and then exposed to high temperatures during the refining process.

The report highlights a recent takeover of mercury mining operations in central Mexico by alleged members of the Cartel Jalisco New Generation and urges the Mexican government to intervene. The information points to yet one more trafficking business being tied to CJNG, which has been labelled as a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. government earlier this year.

Since the terrorist designation went into effect, Mexico’s top security officials have been pushing a public relations strategy where they embellish raids and operations to give the appearance of fighting drug cartels. However, as Breitbart Texas has reported, drug bosses continue to operate throughout Mexico with almost complete impunity.

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President Trump Plans to Open 401(k)s to Bitcoin, Crypto, Gold, and Private Equity: FT

Financial Times reported today that President Trump is preparing to sign an executive order that would allow 401(k) retirement plans to invest in alternative assets such as gold, private equity, and cryptocurrencies like bitcoin.

“Donald Trump is preparing to open the $9tn US retirement market to cryptocurrency investments, gold, and private equity in a move that would spur a radical shift in the way Americans’ savings are managed,” reported the Financial Times.

According to Financial Times, the order is expected this week and will direct federal regulators to remove barriers preventing 401(k) plans from including these non-traditional investments in managed funds. This includes digital assets, metals, private loans, infrastructure deals, and corporate buyout funds.

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Gunmen Hijack 33 Tons of Gold, Silver Concentrate in Truck on Mexican Highway

Authorities in Mexico are remaining tightlipped about how a team of gunmen was able to hijack a truck carrying 33 tons of gold and silver concentrate. The high-stakes robbery comes as Mexico’s government continues to claim that public safety is improving and that the country is safe.

The robbery took place on Monday when a tractor-trailer carrying minerals was traveling from the Mexican state of Durango to the Port of Manzanillo in Colima State, where it was expected to be shipped out. However, while the truck was moving through the state of Jalisco, a group of gunmen in at least two vehicles intercepted the truck, overpowered the security detail, and kidnapped the driver.

According to information released by Grupo Bacis, the mining company that owned the precious metals, the gunmen held the security detail and driver for almost two hours while they stealing the cargo. After the gunmen released the victims, they made their way to a nearby tollbooth where they asked for help.  Mexican authorities were able to find the tractor-trailer soon after, but the cargo was gone. The company has not placed a value on the stolen cargo; however, it is expected to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

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