According to various accounts, Israel Switt had many contacts and friends within the Philadelphia Mint, and reportedly had access to many points of the minting process. A secondary source reports that the Secret Service found that only one man, George McCann, had access to the coins at the time and served prison time for similar embezzlement in 1940. Switt may have obtained the stolen 1933 double eagles through a relationship with the head mint cashier. One theory is that McCann swapped previous year double eagles for the 1933 specimens prior to melting, thus avoiding compromise of accounting books and inventory lists.