Silver Spongebob Coins Missing From Defunct Peregrine Financial Holdings

Chicago, IL – The now-collapsed Peregrine Financial Group fell apart in July after reports that its chief executive had been stealing money from clients for years. According to a trustee filing, it wasn’t just money that went missing – also absent from the firms holdings are 76 sets of silver coins imprinted with the image of popular cartoon character Spongebob Squarepants.

In addition to the lost Spongebob coins, 39 ounces of gold were also reported as missing. According to NBC, the price tag on the missing gold comes in at $66,000, while the missing SpongeBob coin sets are estimated to have a total retail value of about $20,000. Former Peregrine CEO Russell Wasendorf Sr. is accused of stealing up to $215 million in customer money, so the loss of the Spongebob coins is somewhat marginal.

Still, after Wasendorf’s confession and attempted suicide in July, the FBI searched the Peregrine’s Cedar Falls, Iowa, headquarters, finding more SpongeBob coins worth about $375,000. Total, Peregrine owns about 1,528 sets of these coins.

“2 sets were located in Iowa desks,” said the note. “1 set is held by Tom Garland in Chicago, and FBI inventoried 1449 sets; so PFG is missing 76 sets.”

Peregrine also owned 172 ounces of gold, but only 133 ounces could be located. “39 ounces [are] missing,” said the report.

The fate of the missing Spongebob coins is, at this point, unknown, as the filing only provided the first details on Peregrine’s assets and debts since the firm’s bankruptcy filing on July 10th.

For the tens of you that do not know, SpongeBob SquarePants is a cartoon series on the Nickelodeon cable television network.