Gold and precious metals

As of September 2026: US precious-metals dealers have been required to run anti-money-laundering programs since FinCEN's 2005 rule (dealers who both buy and sell above $50,000 a year). Thailand said on 28 August 2026 that it is preparing tighter gold-market legislation, and no final text had been published in the sources we reviewed.

Also called: gold laundering · bullion laundering · scrap gold laundering.

What is gold laundering?

Gold has been money for thousands of years, and it still works like money. A small bar is worth a great deal, buyers exist in almost every country, and the price is public. For a criminal holding suitcases of cash, gold offers a way to turn bulky notes into a compact asset and, later, into a bank payment that looks like ordinary trade.

The FATF and the Asia/Pacific Group described the appeal in their 2015 report: gold has a stable value, is anonymous, and is easily transformed and interchanged. It also offers opportunities at every stage, from mining to retail. And as banks tighten their controls, the report noted, gold becomes an alternative way to store or move assets.

Treasury’s 2024 risk assessment adds practical detail. Precious metals, stones, and jewels have a high value for their weight and stable pricing, and the trade is cash-intensive, which makes criminal money easier to hide inside it. The metal can be carried by couriers, hidden in other objects, or melted into ordinary items, which makes it hard for customs officers to spot.

There are two main directions. In the first, dirty cash is used to buy gold, which is then moved and sold. In the second, gold that is itself illicit, such as illegally mined or smuggled metal, is given a clean history and sold to a refiner. Both rely on the same weak point: the paperwork that says where the metal came from.

How does it work?

1. Buy or book. Cash goes to a scrap dealer, jeweler, or trading company that buys gold in the normal course of business. The cash can be booked as payment for gold that was never bought, or used to buy real gold that becomes the vehicle.
2. Melt and reshape. Jewelry and scrap are melted into bars or grain. From this point, the metal no longer tells anyone about its past.
3. Move it. The gold is shipped across borders, sometimes through third countries. Treasury notes that criminals trade illegal gold through shell or front companies with falsified documents and sell it to refineries.
4. Sell and be paid. The buyer, often a refiner or trader, pays into a bank account. The money arrives labeled as a payment for gold, a legal commodity.

Why does it work?

Gold is legal. Unlike cash, holding a bar or selling scrap is not suspicious in itself, and a business that trades gold can explain large flows of money as part of the job. Treasury makes the point that criminals can conceal illicit wealth without extra scrutiny because the underlying commodity is lawful.

The supply chain is also long. Mines, small-scale miners, traders, refiners, jewelers, and pawnshops all handle the metal, and each hand-off is a chance for a document to be thin or false. Refiners sit at a chokepoint, which is why regulators expect them to test the paperwork they are given.

Finally, gold moves in international trade. It crosses borders, and the invoices for it can be made to look normal, so the layering of gold flows looks much like ordinary commerce. The related trade-based laundering page explains how invoices are misused.

Two more recent US cases from Treasury’s assessment show the range. In June 2023, a couple pleaded guilty to laundering $1.4 million from jewelry thefts and scams; they had pawned stolen jewelry and shipped gold bars, gold coins, and luxury cars bought with the proceeds to Romania. And in May 2022, a Russian national was indicted for running an unlicensed money transmitting business, with more than $150 million sent through the US banking system and more than $65 million of it used to buy gold bullion. Treasury noted possible links to the assets of Russian oligarchs, which would point to sanctions evasion. Those are allegations in an indictment, not findings of guilt. The first case is small and the second is large, but in both the gold was a way to hold and move value outside a normal bank record.

Real cases: La Mina, Elemetal, and Bradford

La Mina (1989). In March 1989 US officials announced Operation Polar Cap, saying a Los Angeles network had laundered about $1.2 billion for the Medellin cartel over roughly two years. Drug cash was disguised as payment for gold and jewelry and wired abroad. The traffickers called the hub “La Mina,” Spanish for “the mine.” A total of 127 people and two Latin American banks were charged. The full account is on the La Mina case page.

Elemetal and NTR Metals (2018). Elemetal is a Dallas-based refiner that also traded as NTR Metals. On March 16, 2018, it pleaded guilty to failing to maintain an adequate anti-money-laundering program. The stipulated facts filed with the court say that from August 2012 to November 2016 it bought and refined billions of dollars of gold, and that it took gold from suppliers without adequate identification or source information, including from self-described “gold collectors.” DOJ said it also kept accepting gold from customers whose sales patterns suggested smuggling and rotating front companies, and where public information pointed to criminally derived gold. The company agreed to recommend forfeiting $15 million and to five years of probation, during which it could not buy precious metals from outside the US. Three former NTR employees in Miami, who pleaded guilty to money-laundering conspiracy, were sentenced to 80, 72, and 90 months.

Bradford (2014 to 2016). West Yorkshire Police call this the largest investigation into criminal cash in UK legal history. Couriers brought bags of notes to Fowler Oldfield, an established scrap jewelry dealer, at times at a rate of £1.7 million a day. The company banked the cash and used it to buy gold grain, which was shipped to Dubai under false invoices. More than £200 million passed through its bank account, and NatWest was fined about £265 million in 2021 over its handling of the account. Two more men were sentenced on 28 August 2026.

How does it get caught?

Refiner and dealer due diligence. The Elemetal case is the lesson. In the US, federal law requires precious-metals dealers to run anti-money-laundering programs, and DOJ charged Elemetal because it failed to maintain an adequate program, which is itself an offence. Good programs ask for the mine or scrap origin, check who the supplier really is, and follow up on public reports of criminal supply.

Bank monitoring. In the Bradford case the deposits were the giveaway: a dealer banking cash at a scale far above what its trade could produce. The fine against NatWest shows that banks are held responsible for spotting it. See detection for how monitoring works.

Customs and trade data. Gold that arrives from a country whose mines could not have produced it, or that leaves under an invoice that does not fit, stands out in trade statistics.

Investigation and forfeiture. Prosecutors follow the cash to the dealer and the dealer to the buyer, and can seize the gold as well as the money.

New rules. Countries are still closing gaps. Thailand’s Finance Ministry said in August 2026 that it wants tighter oversight of physical and online gold trading so that the source of funds used to buy gold, and where the proceeds go, can be traced.

First published September 21, 2026 · Last updated September 21, 2026 · Legal statuses current as of September 2026