NYC magnet fishers reel in $100K from safe: 'I thought he was playing around'

Queens magnet fishers reel in $100K in cash

A couple in Queens went "magnet fishing," yes that’s a thing. They found a safe stuffed with $100,000 in cash. FOX 5 NY’s Arthur Chi’en caught up with the couple about their lucky catch.

NEW YORK CITY - Safe to say, we haven’t heard this one before.

James Kane and Barbie Agostini have an unusual bonding activity called magnet fishing and this past Friday in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, their magnet bonded with a safe.

"You get excited, I’m like ‘oh, a safe’, I know the feeling dude," James said. "It clicks on, it’s called a click, the magnet will stick onto it. It starts getting real heavy."

As James lifted the safe out of the water, they made the thrilling discovery in a plastic bag – $100,000 in cash.

"I thought he was playing around, you know we were just having a good time," Barbie said. "It wasn’t until he peeled back some of the dollars that I seen the $100 symbol and the holographic bars on it. That’s when I realized it was real.

The Queens couple immediately called police to report the discovery. With no identification on the safe, they say they were told – finders keepers.

Their working theory is the safe was stolen and dumped by thieves who didn’t closely inspect what was inside a plastic bag in the safe.

With the bills badly damaged, James and Barbie are sending the stash to the U.S. Treasury in Washington, D.C. to have them validated and hopefully, replaced.

In the meantime, the magnet fishing continues. It’s tiring and grimy work, but a hobby that’s paid off for the couple just 11 months into the unusual pastime.

From the very same spot, James and Barbie say they’ve pulled out at least 15 guns, turning every one of them over to police – hoping they might be the key to unsolved cases and that their discoveries could bring closure to victims of those cases.