Gold bars found in Sen. Bob Menendez’s home linked to 2013 armed robbery: report

Four of the gold bars Sen. Bob Menendez stashed at his home were previously stolen from the businessman accused of bribing the New Jersey Democrat, according to a report. 

The serial numbers on some of the gold found by the FBI during a June 2022 raid on Menendez’s Englewood Cliffs, NJ, home match identifiers that Fred Daibes reported to police after a 2013 armed robbery, according to NBC News. 

Robbers made off with $500,000 in cash and 22 gold bars from Daibes’ Edgewater, NJ, home during the 2013 heist, the outlet reports.

Police later nabbed four suspects and recovered the stolen gold. 

The matching serial numbers indicate that authorities have directly linked at least some of the gold found in Menendez’s home to Daibes, a New Jersey real estate developer and Menendez fundraiser.

Daibes has been accused of bribing the senator for a series of favors, including help in disrupting a federal prosecution against him. 

“Each gold bar has its own serial number,” Daibes told investigators in 2014 when questioned about the stolen gold. “They’re all stamped … you’ll never see two stamped the same way.”

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Daibes also signed “property release forms” to get the gold back, which certified that the stolen goods belonged to him, according to the outlet. 

Menendez, 69, was hit with federal corruption charges in September related to an alleged years-long bribery scheme.

The US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York charged Menendez and his wife, Nadine, 56, with three conspiracy counts in connection with what prosecutors call a “corrupt bribery agreement” that benefited the couple, three New Jersey businessmen — Daibes, Wael Hana and Jose Uribe — and the government of Egypt.

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Prosecutors allege that in March 2022, Daibes gave Nadine two gold bars of a kilogram each — when gold went for $60,000 per kilogram.

Daibes’ driver’s fingerprints were later discovered on an envelope containing thousands of dollars in cash that was recovered from the couple’s home, according to the indictment.

In total, 13 gold bars and $566,000 in cash, some stuffed into the pockets of the senator’s jackets, were found by the FBI during its investigation into the alleged bribery scheme. 

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Menendez has vehemently denied any wrongdoing and has refused to resign from the Senate, despite numerous calls for him to do so, even from fellow Democrats. 

Menendez and his wife are accused of accepting bribes from Daibes in exchange for the senator’s help shielding him from criminal prosecution in a bank fraud case. 

The New Jersey Democrat allegedly helped Daibes by recommending President Biden pick Philip Sellinger, who the senator believed would apply a light touch to the case, for the post of New Jersey US attorney. 

If convicted on all charges, Menendez faces up to 45 years in prison.