Bob Menéndez case: the gold bars confiscated from the senator's house belong to the businessman of the Egyptian corruption plot

The gold bars that federal lawmakers found in the home of Democratic Senator, Bob Menéndez, belong to the businessman accused of bribing him in the Egyptian corruption plot. According to NBC New York, at least four of those ingots have serial numbers that link them to Fred Daibes.

Senator Bob Menéndez, who chaired the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, was indicted this September on federal charges for being part of a corruption scheme that favored several companies in contracts and special relationships with the Egyptian government of Abdel Fattah Al Sisi.

Serial numbers

In this plot, Menéndez's wife would occupy a special role due to her connections with Egypt. The circle is completed by a number of American businessmen, among whom real estate magnate Fred Daibes stands out.

According to the court transcript, the gold bars found at Menéndez's home in New Jersey were used as payments for his services to the corruption scheme. This Monday, NBC New York assured, through its investigation, that at least four of those ingots have serial numbers that make them property of the businessman linked to the plot, Fred Daibes.

NBC also maintains that those same four bars were stolen during an armed robbery involving Daibes, in November 2013. At the time, four armed men beat and robbed Daibes at gunpoint in his apartment in Edgewater, New Jersey, robbing him of 22 gold bars, jewelry and cash.

When Fred Daibes reported the incident in 2013, he assured authorities that the stolen bars were marked with a serial number that made them unique and identifiable. NBC had access to the transcript of the conversation between Daibes and the police officers to confirm this.

In the dossier that the Department of Justice published after Menéndez's indictment in September, there were several photographs showing the ingots found in the senator's home. According to NBC, the serial numbers listed in the DOJ dossier and those found in Daibes' complaint in 2013 are the same.