Apparently Australia is in the middle of a precious metals crime spree the likes of which we haven’t seen or fathomed since the prospecting days of yore.
A man in Western Australia has been charged with stealing a gold bar worth more than $50,000 from the Perth Mint.
The 25-year-old man from Ballajura was employed as a contractor at the Mint when the alleged theft occurred.
Security services at the mint noticed the bar was missing on April 7th, and the Mint subsequently conducted an internal inquiry that lead to the discovery of the alleged theft.
Personnel then alerted the WA Police Gold Stealing Detection Unit, a very thing that exists apparently, who conducted a search on the man’s home. They then charged the man with stealing as a servant, and he will subsequently appear in the Perth Magistrate’s Court today to have the charge heard.
This incident comes hot on the heels of another theft of gold in Victoria, where $70,000 worth of the precious metal was reportedly stolen from the home of a woman in Ballarat.
But stealing gold from a mint? That’s next-level thievery, right there.
We’re not quite sure what’s more shocking: that you’d attempt to swipe a brick of gold and leg it from the very secure place where that stuff is kept and held and also where you work, or that there’s a dedicated unit of the police force whose sole responsibility is investigating the theft of gold. No silver thefts, don’t come to them with that everyday boring shit. Just gold. Only the good stuff, baby.
At this stage it appears the theft in Perth is a one-man operation and there’s no suggestion that anyone else was involved. Regardless, PEDESTRIAN.TV deputy editor James Hennessy refuses to comment on the issue, and we, as a wider editorial department, remain suspicious.
Source: The West Australian.
Photo: Michael Gottschalk/Getty.
