There's gold in them thar hills
Man accused of $180k ass-based gold smuggling scam awaits verdict
A Canadian man accused of smuggling $180,000 of gold out of the Royal mint – allegedly in his anal cavity – is awaiting a court verdict after his defence condemned the government’s case as “appalling” and entirely circumstantial. Leston Lawrence, 35, of Ottawa was accused of charges including theft, laundering the proceeds of …
COMMENTS
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Wednesday 21st September 2016 15:27 GMT Arthur the cat
Re: Midas touch...
Though I wouldn't want to handle the Gold when he's finished with it...
Reminds me of a story I heard from some of my less reputable friends. A guy they knew smuggled some cocaine into the country by anally inserted package, but the package leaked slightly. Not enough to be a problem for him, but the goods got contaminated. He failed to sell any of it, because absolutely nobody wanted to put it up their nose, and had to explain to the large, not easily amused money lender why he couldn't repay the debt with the considerable interest promised.
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Wednesday 21st September 2016 14:08 GMT Rande Knight
Stupid criminal is stupid
Another criminal gets caught for being stupid and not even taking the most simple money laundering precautions.
If you want to launder gold, start up a jewelry business making gold rings and chains, you buy an amount of gold legally and then you sell the rings and chains at a larger markup than usual due to the increased amount of gold you can include using the pilfered loot. Took me 2 mins to think of it. No doubt with some actual thought someone could think of one better.
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Wednesday 21st September 2016 15:27 GMT allthecoolshortnamesweretaken
Two points, if I may.
1 "... the facility was unable to establish whether it was actually short of gold." Huh?
2 "Prosecutors revealed that prior to the court case they had examined the possibility - with a dedicated mint security person taking one for the team, by taking one of the cookie-sized pucks out of the facility in the manner described." Always read the fine print in the job description before you sign the contract.
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Thursday 22nd September 2016 08:58 GMT Crazy Operations Guy
The facility he worked in refined the gold that was shipped to them, so they end up losing quite a lot of mass when the impurities are removed. But why they wouldn't measure the output to make sure it was at least close to the input, is kind of a stupid thing on their part.
But what really confuses me, is why didn't the guy bother to melt the pucks down into a different shape. Maybe make them look like some old colonial-era coins or something that he 'found' while diving or something. Hell, might be able to fool coin collectors and get even more money out of the gold.
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Wednesday 21st September 2016 15:28 GMT x 7
Do you think he had to pucker his sphincter to retain the pucks?
And will the new security checks include a daily asshole inspection? I think I'd want a very large bonus for having to endure that. What about the female employees? They have extra hiding places. Will they get a double inspection?
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Wednesday 21st September 2016 23:46 GMT Anonymous Coward
If they had believed the walk through metal detectors it wouldn't be a problem, since previously he didn't set them off and suddenly he started doing so (randomly, since I doubt he was smuggling gold out every day)
It would only be a problem for someone who had some metal in their body due to joint replacement or the like, who would set the detector off every time.
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Thursday 22nd September 2016 14:54 GMT Scroticus Canis
Bum handheld scanners then
On a saner note. The hand held scanners used at a platinum refinery I worked at, would always go off if female staff had a copper containing IUD fitted (<1g Cu) ; from both belly and bum side scanning. This was 15 years back so the scanners used by the canuks must be pretty crappy not to pick up an ounce of gold.
(Alien as they are probe a lot)