Gold smuggling

Two airline passengers are arrested for smuggling TWO KILOS of gold bars in their rectums after Sri Lanka customs officials notice their 'suspicious movements'

Customs officials have arrested two airline passengers in Sri Lanka for allegedly trying to smuggle 20 gold bars inside their rectums.

The pair, aged 24 and 32, caught the officials' attention as they were noticed walking 'suspiciously', according to a report in Ada Derana.

The suspect smugglers had arrived at Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA), near Colombo, yesterday, when they were intercepted because of their 'suspicious movements'.

After they were stopped and had their bottoms scanned, gold bars were allegedly found concealed in their rectal cavities.

One person was found hiding eight gold bars, while the second suspected smuggler had 12 bars in his rectum. With each bar weighing around 100g, they had a combined weight of two kilos of gold.

Their total value is an estimated £61,000 (13 million Sri Lankan rupees).

Customs officials said that the pair, residents of Hambantota, Southern Province in Sri Lanka, had arrived from Singapore and Chennai.

Gold smuggling

How drug lords make billions smuggling gold to Miami for your jewelry and phones

The United States depends on Latin American gold to feed ravenous demand from its jewelry, bullion and electronics industries. The amount of gold going through Miami every year is equal to roughly 2 percent of the market value of the vast U.S. stockpile in Fort Knox.

But much of that gold comes from outlaw mines deep in the jungle where dangerous chemicals are poisoning rainforests and laborers who toil for scraps of metal, according to human rights watchdogs and industry executives. The environmental damage and human misery mirror the scale of Africa’s “blood diamonds,” experts say.

“A large part of the gold that’s commercialized in the world comes stained by blood and human rights abuses,” said Julian Bernardo Gonzalez, vice president of sustainability for Continental Gold, a Canadian mining company with operations in Colombia that holds legal titles and pays taxes, unlike many smaller mining operations.

Pope Francis is expected to condemn the horrors of illegal mining when he visits the Peruvian Amazon this week.

Gold smuggling

The Dallas Links to an Alleged Gold-Smuggling Scheme

It looked like business as usual the other afternoon at the Preston Road location of Dallas Gold & Silver Exchange Inc., a newish, cement-sided building just north of U.S. Highway 635. Inside the publicly traded retailer’s spacious showroom, where customers are offered cash for gold, silver, and jewelry, there were rows and rows of glass cases containing a dazzling array of rings, watches, necklaces, and rare coins for sale.

Many of the customers, it’s probably safe to say, had no idea that DGSE’s largest shareholder and biggest customer—a private, Dallas-based precious-metals conglomerate called Elemetal LLC—had been mentioned recently in criminal complaints in connection with an alleged, multibillion-dollar money-laundering scheme involving gold smuggled from South America to Miami.

Gold smuggling

Sri Lankan arrested with nearly 1kg of gold in his rectum

Sri Lankan authorities have arrested a man for allegedly trying to smuggle gold and jewellery weighing up to 1kg (2.2lb) hidden in his rectum.

Customs officials found 904 grams of gold, worth about 4.5m Sri Lankan rupees ($29,370, £21,700) inside the suspect's rectal cavity.

The 45-year-old Sri Lankan man was bound for India but was stopped at Colombo's international airport.

There have been several similar cases in past years.

Typically smugglers in the region buy gold in places like Dubai and Singapore, where it is relatively cheap, and then take it to India to sell there at a profit.

Gold smuggling

10 people have been arrested in connection with a €25 million international gold smuggling ring

 10 people have been arrested for their roles in an international smuggling ring which laundered close to €25 million (£21.2 million, $26.4 million) worth of gold.

According to a statement from Eurojust — an EU agency "dealing with judicial co-operation in criminal matters" — an operation led by Italy's Guardia di Finanza and assisted by Hungarian and Slovenian authorities has led to numerous arrests related to laundering across the three nations.

"The group members are accused of being part of a criminal organisation involved in gold laundering in Italy, Hungary and Slovenia," Eurojust's statement said.

Gold smuggling

Man who smuggled gold in rectum from mint gets 30 months in prison, $190K fine

The former Royal Canadian Mint employee who apparently used his rectum to smuggle 22 solid gold "pucks" out of the secure facility in Ottawa has been given a 30-month prison sentence and must pay a fine of $190,000.

In November, 35-year-old Leston Lawrence was found guilty of stealing the 22 pucks from the mint on Sussex Drive, and of laundering 17 of them through Ottawa Gold Buyers (the cheque for an 18th puck never cleared because that puck was seized by police).

Lawrence was also found guilty of possession of property obtained by crime, conveying gold out of the mint and breach of trust by a public official.

Gold smuggling

Mint employee guilty of smuggling $165K of gold in rectum

A former Royal Canadian Mint employee has been found guilty of smuggling $165,000 worth of gold from the building on Sussex Drive — apparently in his rectum, an Ottawa judge ruled Wednesday morning.

Leston Lawrence "clearly had the opportunity" to steal the gold because he often worked alone and the security cameras would not have caught him slipping gold pucks into his pocket, Justice Peter Doody ruled.

"His locker contained Vaseline and latex gloves, which could have been used to insert a puck into his rectum," he ruled, adding that there were no cameras in the locker room.

Lawrence set off the mint's walk-through metal detectors more than any other employee without a metal implant — 28 times between December 2014 and March 2015, court heard. But when a secondary check with handheld detectors failed to alert guards to the gold, Lawrence was able to leave with it each time, Doody found.

Gold smuggling

Canadian Mint employee accused of smuggling $180K of gold in his rectum

The great mystery that went unanswered at trial, however, was this: how did the gold get out of the Mint?

Court was told Lawrence set off the metal detector at an exit from the “secure area” with more frequency than any other employee — save those with metal medical implants. When that happened, the procedure was to do a manual search with a hand-held wand, a search that he always passed.

(It was not uncommon for employees to set off the detector, court heard.)

Investigators also found a container of vaseline in his locker and the trial was presented with the prospect that a puck could be concealed in an anal cavity and not be detected by the wand. In preparation for these proceedings, in fact, a security employee actually tested the idea, Barnes said.

Lawrence did not take the stand — as is his legal right — and the Crown was not able to definitively establish how the gold pucks made their way out of the facility.

Gold smuggling

Illegal gold trade in Congo still benefiting armed groups, foreign companies

According to the UK-based organization, which campaigns against natural resource-related conflict and corruption, up to $17 million worth of gold produced by Chinese firm Kun Hou Mining went missing during a 12-month period between 2014 and 2015. The document adds that the metal was very likely to have been “smuggled out of Congo into international supply chains.”

Illegal gold trade has also benefitted Congo-based armed groups, which made as much as $25,000 a month in illegal taxes charged to artisanal diggers and received at least two assault rifles and $4,000 from the company over a two-year period, Global Witness says.

Global regulations in place since the beginning of the decade, such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development guidelines on responsible mineral-supply chains and the U.S. Dodd-Frank Act, have been more successful when it comes to limiting illegal trade of the so-called conflict minerals.

Gold smuggling

Flight attendant caught smuggling 1.2kg gold

A Jet Airways cabin crew member on a Mumbai-Dubai return flight was arrested in Mumbai International Airport last week for allegedly smuggling gold bars weighing 1.2kg. The incident occurred soon after the arrival of flight 9W-543 on September 24.The crew member had reportedly managed to clear security but was called back after CCTV footage caught him hiding a packet while he was waiting his turn to be frisked. A customs official who had noticed his clandestine activity alerted the police who questioned him and later arrested him.