Royal Mint worker stole £133,000 in gold by smuggling up his backside
A ROYAL Mint worker has been found guilty of smuggling £133,000 worth of gold bars up his bum.
Leston Lawrence denied the theft but lost his battle in court after evidence revealed he had "Vaseline and latex gloves" in his locker "which could have been used to insert [the gold] into his rectum," according to Canadian judge Peter Doody.
Footage has been released showing Lawrence calmly walking through security at the Royal Canadian Mint while allegedly hiding the precious metal in his backside.
Despite setting off metal detectors 28 times between December 2014 and March 2015, and being frisked by security staff, he managed to leave the building multiple times with the stolen gold undetected.
A judge at the court in the Canadian city of Ottawa, in Ontario, found the bandit guilty after ruling he "clearly had the opportunity" to steal the gold because he often worked alone and the security cameras would not have caught him slipping the so called gold 'pucks' into his pocket.
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The court also noted that security guards had been negligent in constantly allowed Lawrence to leave.
Guards said they searched him and found nothing and assumed it was a technical error.
The court heard that the follow-up search was done with handheld detectors that are not powerful enough to detect gold hidden in a body cavity.
Though there was no video evidence of Lawrence stealing the gold from the mint, he was found guilty of the theft of 22 gold "pucks" and laundering 18 of them via Ottawa Gold Buyers.
He was also convicted of possession of stolen property, conveying gold out of the mint, and breach of trust by a public official.
Lawrence worked at the Mint for 7 years purifying gold, jewellery coins and bars by melting them down, injecting them with chlorine gas and skimming off the base metal until the molten gold reached almost 100 pure.
His job was was to take small amounts of the gold and test it for purity before melting it back down again afterwards. But instead the kept the gold and stole it in his bum cavity.
The Mint produces all of Canada's circulation coins, and manufactures circulation coins - including gold coins - on behalf of other nations.
Lawrence's sentencing was adjourned until 28th November.
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