DUSTY FIND WORTH ENOUGH TO PAY FOR RENO

In mid- February, Alif Babul and his new employee Dean Materi noticed something unusual amid a dusty pile of rubble while ripping apart a Calgary home’s bathroom. It was Materi’s second day working with Babul as a plumbing apprentice. “I seen a gold shimmery thing on the ground and I thought it was a copper light fixture,” Materi says. “But when I went to shovel it up, it seemed kind of heavy. I picked it up, and it was a gold brick.” Materi inspected the cellphone-sized one kilogram gold bar imprinted with a serial number and the stamp of a well-known jeweller. The duo’s research led them to believe the brick was worth more than $50,000 and they soon contacted the homeowner, who confirmed a gold bar was unaccounted for in the house.