Former Contractor Charged with Theft of Gold from Perth Mint

May 5, 2017

Perth Mint Arrest - Jail Scene

By CoinWeek News Staff ….
On April 7, the Perth Mint in Perth, Western Australia, became aware of the possible theft of a one-kilogram gold bar. A security team involved with the Mint investigated the situation and determined that the gold was indeed stolen.

The Perth Mint then contacted the Gold Stealing Detection Unit of the Western Australian Police about the theft. The missing gold has been assigned a value of $52,457 AUD ($38,818.18 USD at the time of writing).

On April 11, police had cause to search the home of a 25-year-old man in Ballajura, a suburb to the north of the city of Perth. The man, whose name has not been revealed to the media, was a former contractor at the Perth Mint Refinery.

A 1 kg gold bar was found at the man’s residence.

The former contractor is now charged with “stealing as a servant” and “gaining benefit by fraud”. “Stealing as a servant” essentially means theft from an employer, and is treated as a special category of stealing, accompanied by harsher sentencing if convicted due to the presumed breach of trust involved. “Gaining benefit by fraud” refers to a crime wherein fraud was intentionally committed to benefit the defendant either directly or indirectly.

The alleged thief was scheduled to appear before the Perth Magistrate’s Court on May 5.

2016 Security Breach

This is not, however, the first theft within recent memory to take place at the Perth Mint. The Mint acknowledged in a press release that the Gold Stealing Detection Unit of the Western Australian Police had discerned that another contractor had taken a small amount of gold from Mint facilities in May of 2016. CoinWeek reached out to Mint officials at the time, but the Mint declined to discuss the case, pending further investigation.

CoinWeek has contacted Perth in regards to the current theft plus the 2016 incident, and will update this post as necessary.

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