Profitable, Perfectly Legal Lessons You Can Learn from Gold Heists

Here at Gold Refiners.com, part of Specialty Metals Smelters and Refiners, we are 100% committed to doing business honestly and ethically. We very rarely get calls from people who want us to extract precious metals in ways that shortcut environmental laws, for example. But when we do, we turn that business away.

Yet the fact remains that some lessons can be learned from crooks – the most successful of them are pretty smart, after all – about how to honestly get some more profit from gold.

Lesson One: You Can Leverage Profits by Trading Other Stuff for Gold

According to The Money Laundering Bulletin, drug cartels in Mexico are laundering large sums of drug money by using it to buy gold, then selling gold across borders in the U.S. and elsewhere, where buyers never know that they are paying money to some of the most nefarious crooks on the planet.

Now, let me state emphatically that we are not suggesting that you invest in gold to launder money that you got from illegal activities. But the activities of those drug dealers remind us that it can be wise to roll the money that you earn from other sources – like real-estate investing, trading fine art, or even your salary – into investments in gold that you can buy now at low prices and hold until their prices increase.

Is that illegal? Not at all. Can it be immensely profitable? Definitely so.

Lesson Two: Keep Alert for Sources of Small Quantities of Precious Metals

According to WRCR News and other sources, a driver of a United Parcel Service truck was arrested in January and charged with the theft of $197,00 worth of gold and silver that he obtained by stealing packages that appeared to contain precious coins, like parcels from coin dealers. Investigators found most of the stolen goods stored right in his home.

Okay, that is a bad story – very bad. But it does teach us an honest lesson, which is that if we keep our eyes open and stay alert, we can find many small quantities of gold that we can obtain honestly. Those small batches can add up to big sums of money. Gold can be found at antique malls, in estate sales, on eBay, in our top dresser drawers, in used sputtering targets that were used in manufacturing, in used electronic equipment and printed circuit boards, and in dozens of other places that we can easily search. If we think just a little bit like that UPS driver, keep our eyes open and buy stuff instead of stealing it, we can turn little discoveries into big profits.

Lesson Three: Don’t Buy Gold from Suspicious Sources

ABC Eyewitness News reported last year that some truly heinous crimes were taking place in and round Thousand Oaks, California. Nicely dressed, polite gold thieves there were befriending wealthy Indian-Americans there, getting to know their daily routines, then burglarizing their homes when they were not at home.

The thieves got caught when they couldn’t resist the temptation to post pictures of the stuff they had stolen on social media sites. (Well, not all crooks are smart.) Law enforcement officials saw those postings and nabbed the crooks.

The lesson for honest people – and it is pretty scary one – is that crooks really are looking to sell precious metals that they have stolen. So be very cautious about buying quantities of gold and other precious metals by meeting directly with individuals who advertise them for sale online. You could be buying stolen goods, or you could be exposing yourself to criminal activity.

Lesson Four: Ship Your Gold Safely

According to an article from the Associated Press, thieves stole a whopping 275 pounds of 24k gold bars, worth $4.8 million, from just one truck that was carrying it on I-95 in Raleigh, NC, on March 3. The truck developed mechanical difficulties and while it was disabled at the side of the road, thieves simply drove up to it, tied up its three drivers, and made off with a staggering quantity of gold.

Why would anyone ship that much gold in just one truck? Why would anyone fail to reduce risk by spreading it out into multiple, insured small shipments? The lesson for us honest folks is to take pains to ship gold securely. If you have gold that you would like to send to us for testing or refining, give us a call at 800-426-2344 and we will tell you how.

Related Posts:

Don’t Fall Victim to “Cash for Gold” Scams 
A Simple Security Lesson We Can Learn from Famous Gold Heists 
Should You Believe Conspiracy Theories about Gold? 
The Worst Places to Hide Gold and Precious Metals