Innovative gold thieves busted in Chongqing
Print Edition
POLICE in Chongqing City have detained seven people for stealing about 8 kilograms of gold from electroplate liquid and dipping them in “magical” chemical sandbags.
They made a profit of over 2 million yuan (US$321,000), according to Chongqing police.
It was the first time that the southwestern city had cracked a gold theft case involving chemicals, police said.
Police also arrested four gold dealers who purchased the stolen metal.
The managers of an electronics firm in Xiyong Town in Chongqing had been troubled by the unusual fast consumption of potassium aurous cyanide, an expensive liquid used for gold plating on circuit boards or mainboards, Chongqing Morning Post reported.
After struggling to find the reason themselves, they reported the matter to police last October, the newspaper said.
During their investigations, Xiyong police found a young man selling highly purified powdered gold in the town and suspected he might be related to the company’s problems.
Plainclothes police kept an eye on all precious metal trading spots, pretending to be shoe shiners, newspaper sellers and other vendors.
They rounded up 11 suspects, including seven workers from the company and four gold dealers, the report said.
The modus operandi soon came to light.
The seven workers would first put active metals in fist-sized sandbags and dip them into the bottom of a pool containing gold plating liquid. The active metal melted and the tiny golden flecks from the liquid stuck onto the sandbags. They then dried them and sold the flecks to dealers at prices lower than the market value of gold.
The dealers would then refine the gold as high as 95 percent and sell them at a higher price.
One sandbag could suck 50 grams to 60 grams of gold per night and the seven workers got about 8 kilograms between September 2012 and October 2013, earning over 2 million yuan, the report said.
Of that, police have already seized 1.38 million.
The dealers also made massive profits after trading them.
A dealer, surnamed Gao, is one of the prime suspects.
The 27-year-old man from Hubei Province picked up the gold sucking skill from his fellow-townsman, surnamed Du, who himself learnt it at an electronics factory in Shenzhen.
Gao joined the electronics company in Xiyong in 2011 and began stealing gold six months later after familiarizing himself with production and regulation of the company.
In the next six months he made over 400,000 yuan but was too scared to continue with the company. He left it in 2012 to become a gold dealer after training several other workers as apprentices.
Gao and his apprentices are in police custody now.
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