New York magnet fishing couple pull safe from bottom lake with '$100,000' inside

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By Nasima Khatun

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A couple was shocked to discover a safe filled with money while fishing.

James Kane and Barbie Agostini, from Queens in New York, were out magnet fishing when they made a wild discovery.

Now, for those of you who might not be aware, magnet fishing is an activity that involves using a strong magnet attached to a thick rope in an attempt to fish out metal objects that have sunk to the bottom of canals, lakes, ponds, and rivers.

And typically, people find some old furniture or broken car parts or utensils etc. - but this one couple was surprised to hit the jackpot - literally - after fishing at the bottom of a lake in Corona Park on Friday afternoon.

GettyImages-1228640150.jpgMagnet Fishing involves using a strong magnet to find metal objects. Credit: David L. Ryan/The Boston Globe/Getty

As per a report by NY1, Kane and Agostini felt something pretty heavy at the end of their magnet, and as they pulled the object to the top of the water's surface, they soon realized that it was an old safe.

After cracking the safe open, they were left speechless upon discovering "$100,000" wrapped up in plastic, but unfortunately, the notes were all ruined by the water.

“It was two stacks of freaking hundreds. Big stacks," Kane told the outlet.


While the pair stated that they've stumbled across many old safes before, they never really contained anything of importance - just some old plastic, if that.

And they half expected this one to be the same.

However, when they saw the wads of cash, they couldn't believe their eyes to the point where Agostini thought that Kane was joking about it all.

"He showed me and once I saw the actual dollars and the security ribbons I lost it," she said.

But "[the bills were] soaking wet, pretty much destroyed," Kane said.

The couple called the police, just to avoid any legal troubles, and when they arrived on the scene, they too were speechless upon seeing all the soaking wet fat stacks.



And much to their surprise, the couple was told to keep their findings since there was no way of proving who the safe originally belonged to.

"I guess the finders keepers rule worked for us," Kane said.

After the story hit Twitter, better known now as X, many couldn't help but make jokes about the situation.

"Hey does anyone know who I contact if I dropped my safe in a lake?" wrote one user while another added: "Somebody in prison is going to be super pissed tomorrow."

Speaking of their hobby, the pair opened up about becoming avid magnet fishers during the pandemic in 2020.


And since then, their hobby has become one that they're pretty fond of.

"We were [bored] during [the] covid lockdown and I’ve always had this itch to become a treasure hunter... so we discovered something called magnet fishing,” Kane told NY1 before referring to it as "the poor man’s treasure hunting."

I mean, each to their own, right?

Featured Image Credit: Isabel Pavia/Getty