Couple stunned after discovering safe packed with £80,000 at bottom of lake
The pair were magnet fishing at a Lake in Queens, New York, when they came across the strongbox stuff with cash.
A couple were shocked when their magnet fishing hobby led them to discover a safe stuffed with $100,000 (£80,000) at the bottom of a New York lake.
James Kane and Barbie Agostini are enthusiasts of a technique which uses a metal-attracting lure to find interesting or valuable items left underwater.
And on Friday, May 31 it seems the pair hit the jackpot when their magnets latched onto a metal safe containing a huge amount of cash in a body of water at Flushing Meadows Corona Park in Queens.
Mr Kane and Ms Agostini pulled the submerged treasure from the water and discovered it was crammed full of water damaged $100 bills.
Local media site NY1 reports the lucky couple have been allowed to keep the cash after law enforcement officials said they could find no link to any crime record.
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Mr Kane told the channel: "We have found plenty of safes before, and then I saw the numbers and thought, 'this is not possible.'"
"We pulled it out and it was big stacks of freaking hundreds. These are thick stacks, they're soaking wet, they're pretty much destroyed."
He added that a group of police officers arrived at the scene to survey their find, with one who had served in the NYPD for 18 years telling Mr Kane they had "never ever heard of anything like this".
Ms Mrs Agostini said they contacted the police but "there were no IDs, no way to find the original person, in the safe". She added: "[The police] were like, 'well, congratulations."
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The windfall is certainly something new for the magnet fishing pair, who said their previous finds have included old guns, World War II grenades, a full-sized motorcycle, foreign coins, and jewellery.
According to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, which designs US currency, damaged money can be redeemed at full value if "clearly more than 50 percent of a note identifiable as United States currency is present, along with sufficient remnants of any relevant security feature".
The body said on its website: "On average, BEP receives more than 22,000 requests for examination of mutilated currency for possible redemption each year, with an estimated value in excess of $35 million."