Mystery donor gives city $3.6m in gold bars with one big request

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Okay, so this is wild! Someone – a total mystery donor – just dropped 21 kilograms of gold, worth around $3.6 million, on the city of Osaka, Japan. And get this – they’re using it to fix the old, leaky water pipes! Seriously, who does that? It’s like a real-life side quest for the city!

City leaders announced the large amount of gold discovered will be used to pay for essential repairs and improvements to the city’s aging roads, pipes, and other vital systems. They explained the city is facing increasing costs to keep these older systems running.

The Associated Press reports that gold was given to the Osaka City Waterworks Bureau last November.

The donation, weighing 21 kilograms (about 46 pounds), is worth roughly 560 million yen – around $3.6 million. The donor asked that the money be used to fix and improve the city’s old water pipes.

Japanese city gifted gold by unknown person

Mayor Hideyuki Yokoyama said he was stunned by the scale of the contribution.

Yokoyama said the donation was incredibly generous, leaving him without words. He explained that repairing the city’s old water pipes is a very expensive undertaking, and he expressed deep gratitude for the support.

I’ve been reading about Osaka, and it’s facing a problem a lot of places in Japan are – a lot of their roads, bridges, and buildings were built after the war, during a big construction boom, and now they’re just getting old and need replacing. It’s a huge challenge for the city!

The city is selling its gold to help pay for repairs to the water system. Officials haven’t revealed who gave the gold.

Similar generosity occurred in 2025 when a senior citizen gifted gold worth more than $2 million to the city of Nara, intending to enhance their emergency shelters.

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2026-02-20 17:20