Former Canadian Mint employee guilty of smuggling $165K of gold

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

Leston Lawrence, 35, is said to have stolen 22 gold pucks by carrying them in his body cavity to evade metal detectors at the fortress-like building. He then proceeded to launder 18 of those nuggets via Ottawa Gold Buyers.

"His locker contained Vaseline and latex gloves, which could have been used to insert a puck into his rectum," Justice Peter Doody said according to CBC News, adding that there were no cameras in the locker room.

Lawrence worked in the high-security area of the Mint where raw the precious metal is refined in a process that requires melting and chlorination. Gold is tested along the way by using a special dipping spoon that draws gold and cools it into puck-like cylinders that are examined for purity.

The post Former Canadian Mint employee guilty of smuggling $165K of gold appeared first on MINING.com.

from MINING.com http://www.mining.com/former-canadian-mint-employee-guilty-of-smuggling-165k-of-gold/