An employee at the Royal Canadian Mint is accused of smuggling $180K worth of gold in his rectum.
The case against 35-year-old Lester Lawrence concluded in an Ottawa, Ontario, courtroom on Tuesday. Lawrence is accused of transporting several cookie-sized gold pieces called “pucks” out of the Mint and selling them to a gold buyer.
His dealings allegedly netted him almost $180K over the course of a few months, authorities allege. The figure, coupled with the fact he worked at the Mint, raised a few red flags at the gold place.
Although the prosecution couldn’t definitively identify the pucks Lawrence sold, they did say they matched an exclusive mold the Mint uses.
Putting two and two together, there was only the issue of how Lawrence got the gold out of the high-security building where he worked to be solved.
Putting it to the test
Investigators posited that he used a little ingenuity and some Vaseline. They found a tub of the stuff in his work locker, prompting investigators to start wondering why he was using it.
During testimony, it was revealed Lawrence set off the metal detectors at work more than other employees, but they never seemed to find anything on him.
The Ottawa Citizen reported that, “the trial was presented with the prospect that a puck could be concealed in an anal cavity and not be detected by the wand. In preparation for these proceedings, in fact, a security employee actually tested the idea.”
The defense says the Mint isn’t even sure whether any of its gold is missing.
Lawrence has since been fire, according to the newspaper. He had worked as an operator in the refinery section.
Justice Peter Doody, the judge presiding over the case, won’t make a decision until November.