Royal Canadian Mint Unaware As Leston Lawrence Allegedly Smuggled $140K Of Gold In Rectum

Leston Lawrence, a 35-year-old former employee with the Royal Canadian Mint in Ottawa, Ontario, appeared in court yesterday to face charges of “theft, laundering the proceeds of crime, possession of stolen property and breach of trust,” as reported by the Ottawa Citizen.

According to reports, the Royal Canadian Mint was completely unaware that any gold was missing and the actions of Leston Lawrence only came to the attention of the RCMP as a result of the efforts of a vigilant bank teller.

A decision from Justice Peter Doody about the charges is expected on November 9.

Lawrence is alleged to have taken blank gold coins called “pucks” that are produced when a specially designed “dipping spoon” is used to handle molten gold. A post office box registered to Lawrence is alleged to have contained four of these gold pucks, which matched with equipment used at the mint.

On several occasions, the prosecutor alleged that Lawrence sold gold pucks to Ottawa Gold Buyers, located in Ottawa’s Westgate Shopping Centre, for which he was given checks each totaling about CDN$6,800, fluctuating with the price of gold.

It was Leston Lawrence’s account profile with the Royal Bank of Canada (NYSE: RY) listing him as an employee with the Royal Canadian Mint that was reported to tip an alert bank teller off, after processing multiple checks from Lawrence.

Bank records are reported to indicate that 18 transactions selling gold pucks were made by Lawrence from November, 2014, until March, 2015, totally CDN$179,015 or about US$140,000, as reported by the Washington Post.

“This is the Royal Canadian Mint, your Honour, and one would think they should have the highest security measures imaginable,” Lawrence’s defense lawyer, Gary Barnes, reportedly stated in court. “And here the gold is left sitting around in open buckets.”

Employees with the Royal Canadian Mint and all facilities that deal with precious metals are required to walk through metal detectors at the end of each shift. It is alleged that Lawrence set off those detectors more often “than any other employee — save those with metal medical implants.”

Procedure with the mint is said to call for a wand to be waved over the bodies of employees who set off the first metal detector, a process that Leston Lawrence passed every time. Lawrence was never caught with gold in his possession while leaving the mint.

It has been noted that a jar of petroleum jelly was found in Lawrence’s locker, and that it would be expected that a wand would not detect gold concealed in the rectum, something that has since been tested by a mint employee.

Gary Barnes has noted that prosecutors had not entered any definitive proof that Lawrence actually smuggled gold from the mint in his rectum, that it is only a theory, that he made no effort to conceal his gold transactions, and that there were legitimate ways the gold pucks could have come to be in his possession.

“In fact, I would submit the Mint doesn’t even know if anything is missing,” Barnes was quoted.

In response to the alleged theft, security measures at the mint are reported to have been stepped up using advanced “trend analysis technology,” improved tracking of physical gold balances, and high-definition surveillance cameras.

At least two other thefts from the mint by employees have been recorded in the past 30 years; the most recent was in 1996 when Richard Gauthier was caught trying to sneak eight gold bars out of the facility.

Leston Lawrence’s job with the Royal Canadian Mint involved testing the composition of gold being used to produce coins, which are guaranteed to be 99 percent pure.

[Feature Image via Lezumbalaberenjena via Wikimedia Commons | Cropped & Resized | Public Domain]