150 tons of LR stolen!!

[jackthestrat]

Karrie Carnes, spokeswoman for the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, where the aqua farm was located, confirmed Novak had a permit.

''It's fishy nobody saw 300,000 pounds of rock being removed,'' she said.

That's an intentional pun if I ever saw one.

Absolutely, her sense of humor really rocks.

 

[madisonrose]

yeah somebody had some really big stones to steal all that

 

[marco67]

This will be interesting to keep an eye on,
There is such low crime down there that every agency is all over it.

 

[Rick C]

So no one else thinks this guy is pulling a fast one? Over a million dollars of uninsured rock that he doesn't check up on. Come on now. One thing is for sure though, I'll bet his investors are not very pleased with the situation.

 

[marco67]

There's a lot of "buzz" going around,
The FWC has been contacting everyone that has anything to do with rock in the keys and they are pretty serious about it.
"It will be interesting to see how it unfolds"

 

[Andy V]

So no one else thinks this guy is pulling a fast one? Over a million dollars of uninsured rock that he doesn't check up on. Come on now. One thing is for sure though, I'll bet his investors are not very pleased with the situation.

I am not following your logic...

The rock was uninsured, and the article makes no mention of any investors. Is there another article that I missed?

If the rock was uninsured and the guy had no investors or partners, what fast one could he be pulling?

 

[Rick C]

the article makes no mention of any investors.

Lol, yeah your right. I read it quick and thought it said investors. It actually says investigators. My bad, I retract my last statement.
Good call on that one.

 

[apex008]

Probably got buried by storms and such.

 

[JohnK]

Yea, I was wondering if the sand shifted and buried his rocks

 

[dasco]

I read in order to get his permit he had to place on solid floor no more then 6 inches of sand, so highly unlikly it got burried in the sand.

 

[sciknen]

probably not.. he must have checked for that...

 

[JohnK]

He didn't check on the rock for 18 months. Must have been at least a few hurricanes in that time.

Maybe a couple of feet of sand got washed in

 

[Nonmouse]

He didn't check on the rock for 18 months. Must have been at least a few hurricanes in that time.

Maybe a couple of feet of sand got washed in

Errr... It mentioned "rubble" and bits of rock in the article... I kinda think that if the rubble's there, the rock would be. The fact that there are several other rock farmers in the area kinda makes me think that somebody started snagging a little rock, and when no-one made a fuss, just kept on until all the rock was gone.

 

[JohnK]

Your probably right. I was just going for the light hearted take on it

 

[Bobbofin]

The other farmers close by just helped themselves a little at a time until it was all gone! People propably noticed the farmers out there doing their thing but never put two and two together. The equipment needed to run such an operation and take that much rock kind of rules out your everyday Tom, Dick or Harry, never mind the channels to sell it. Shame on him for not checking on his investment for over a year. I'd be looking at his fellow leasee/neighbors first who probably helped themselves.

 

[marco67]

The other farmers close by just helped themselves a little at a time until it was all gone! People propably noticed the farmers out there doing their thing but never put two and two together. The equipment needed to run such an operation and take that much rock kind of rules out your everyday Tom, Dick or Harry, never mind the channels to sell it. Shame on him for not checking on his investment for over a year. I'd be looking at his fellow leasee/neighbors first who probably helped themselves.

Good points,
Don't forget too, no matter where it went there would need to be a trail.
What goes in and out of those leases is monitored pretty tightly.
There's no way it was sold as that much volume of FL rock would have stood out like a sore thumb. There is just not the marker here in the US for 150K tons of FL yearly so it would have had to have been sold so cheap we (everyone in the hobby) would have heard of it. Plus harvesting that much and getting it into port without someone noticing how "well" you seem to be doing in a year isn't quite piratical.

I know the FWC is planning on diving his (and probably others) sight next week and I'd bet they have everyone's paperwork under a scope right now.
Owners of these leases are required to file a report on everything they place or harvest within 24 hrs of doing it.

My guess is that it was never there or it's "hiding" in plain sight.

 

[Fish Ace]

Anything to drive the price up.

 

[dz6t]

Is it possible they went oversea? The oversea market is very big.

 

[JayM]

anyone hear anything new on this?