(Mike Maharrey, Money Metals News Service) I ran across a story about a gold and silver theft the other day.
It contains some valuable lessons.
And it also raises a few questions.
Let me just warn you up front: this story is rated PG-13.
Now, you’re probably thinking: what can be so unusual about somebody stealing precious metals? It happens a lot. Gold and silver are ideally suited for theft. They are valuable. They are portable. And they are easy to sell because pretty much everybody would like to have some gold and silver. Its value is recognized virtually everywhere in the world.
But trust me. This story is – different.
According to the Yakima Herald-Republic, the story begins with a 75-year-old woman who needed a handyman to install new locks on her home. She found one in a 59-year-old man who was not identified by the paper because formal charges had yet to be filed. We’re going to call the man John. The reason for this name will become clear in a moment.
John installed the aforementioned locks. Apparently, he did a pretty darn good job because, according to the Herald-Republic, the woman paid him with “sex and food.”
I’m sure there are plenty of dudes reading this thinking, “Yeah, I’d take that deal.”
This is where the story gets a little convoluted in my mind. The woman told police the man was her boyfriend. I don’t get it. You don’t usually “hire” your boyfriend to do handyman work. But that’s how the Herald Republic described things.
“Yakima police said a handyman stole gold and silver coins from a woman with whom he was trading work for sex.”
You would think the report would read, “A woman’s boyfriend stole gold and silver coins,” if he were, in fact, her beau. But it doesn’t. I guess we’ll have to roll with it.
Regardless, our intrepid handyman apparently wasn’t impressed with sex and food as payment for his services.
He wanted more!
According to the report, John had keys to the woman’s house and a gate opener. He allegedly stole 10 1-ounce gold coins. That would be worth over $43,000 at today’s gold price. He also absconded with 500 silver coins worth an estimated $20,000, along with a couple of guns and some jewelry.
I pause here to offer you a bit of unsolicited advice: don’t give the handyman keys to your house, especially if you have over $60,000 in gold and silver accessible for the taking. And maybe don’t give your boyfriend keys either.
I also need to comment on the woman’s security measures.
There weren’t any.
Based on an affidavit, John was staying with his daughter and bragged about the theft. (To all of you aspiring thieves out there, you might not want to tell people about your crimes.) He even showed his son-in-law a mug partially filled with gold coins. According to the report, “He described removing silver coins from a sealed container, replacing them with loose change so it would weigh the same and resealing the container.”
Now, if I were going to store thousands of dollars of precious metals in my house, I would get a safe. I might even hide the safe. I might even consider storing my valuable precious metals in Money Metals’ state-of-the-art bullion depository.
What I wouldn’t do is leave $20,000 worth of silver in a “container!”
If you do, you might just discover your boyfriend, or should I say your John, might pilfer it.
Police arrested John on Dec. 2 as he was pulling into the woman’s driveway. Authorities say pawn shop records reveal John had already sold a large number of the stolen coins. Police booked him into the Yakima County jail on suspicion of theft and trafficking in stolen property.
As for the woman, she is probably out of luck. The pawn shop owner told police he had already sold the coins. She’s also out of one boyfriend and is going to need to find a new handyman to “change her locks.”
Mike Maharrey is a journalist and market analyst for Money Metals with over a decade of experience in precious metals. He holds a BS in accounting from the University of Kentucky and a BA in journalism from the University of South Florida.
