Two New Yorkers tried to leave Brazil with 77 pounds of gold in their luggage

[searcher]

From the link:

Just after 9 p.m. on Jan. 24, 2020, two American businessmen walked toward a customs desk inside the airport in Manaus, Brazil, a bustling city on the edge of the Amazon rainforest.

Frank Giannuzzi and Steven Bellino were New York moneymen. Bellino, then 62, had worked as a Wall Street trader since the 1980s. Giannuzzi, then 39, was an equity trader before he launched a handful of businesses that ranged from financial service companies to an online auction platform.

With gold prices soaring in 2019, the two friends devised a plan to cash in, Bellino would later say in court papers.

Giannuzzi’s Brazilian wife connected them to a local gold trader. There was a meeting in São Paulo. One in New York.

Two New Yorkers tried to leave Brazil with 77 pounds of gold in their luggage

 

[Goldhedge]

"The officers were acting on “intelligence information” that the men were carrying irregular cargo, said Ricardo Livio, a geologist with Brazil’s federal police."

I wonder how they were 'informed'?

Probably should have sent it by mail... UPS?

 

[JayDubya]

Two New Yorkers tried to leave Brazil with 77 pounds of gold in their luggage​

61 gold bars, weighing 77 pounds. The value is $1.4M according to a police report

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/worl...n-their-luggage/ar-AA19lsR9?OCID=ansmsnnews11

 

[Joe King]

71 lbs of gold in their luggage? Yea, like they weren't gonna notice that at all.
Sounds like someone(s) were too greedy to pay for a few more mules.
....or maybe these two were the sacrificial smugglers and the real mother lode walked through while security was busy with these two?

 

[glockngold]

What again was their crime?

 

[Goldhedge]

What again was their crime?

Gold came from illegal mining. They declared it at the airport 12 hrs before their flight to avoid any problems.

So they were on the up and up... or so they thought.

 

[pmbug]

Apparently this happened in 2020 and has been an ongoing legal battle since.

 

[Goldhedge]

What they should have done was what Streettips does with gold.
Turns it into sand-like pure gold powder before melting into bars.

Then you use the 'sand' as ballast in something that requires a stabilizing weight such as statues...?

4m

 

[andial]

What again was their crime?

It's worse than a crime, it's a blunder.

 

[jrog100]

I'm surprised they didn't have it stuffed up their asses. HAHA

 

[Casey Jones]

Agreed, it is no crime.

But the actions, to say the least, are SUSPICIOUS. Starting with, given our current environment, those bars would probably be safer and more useful IN Brazil.

So that tells me they're doing more than just toting their retirement wealth.

In all the PC Policing rot, and the Woking up of laws and law enforcement...we tend to forget what good policing looks like.

This is not, on the face, a crime. But it sure looks like it's an indication that a crime is being enabled.

 

[nickndfl]

I wonder where they keep it? I would not trust any vaults in the Americas. Where would you keep $5m in gold?

 

[Casey Jones]

I wonder where they keep it? I would not trust any vaults in the Americas. Where would you keep $5m in gold?

In many places.

The odds that some of it would get stolen, is almost a dead certainty. But the odds that a MAJORITY of it would get stolen, would be pretty remote.

...not good enough? Well, it's better than what happened, isn't it?

 

[pmbug]

... Where would you keep $5m in gold?

At the bottom of a lake of course.

 

[Cigarlover]

So now that the illegal gold has been confiscated what do they do with it? Dump it in the ocean? Does it become legal gold now that the government confiscated it?

 

[Joe King]

Does it become legal gold now that the government confiscated it?

Yep, just like that. Easy as

 

[Goldhedge]

So now that the illegal gold has been confiscated what do they do with it? Dump it in the ocean? Does it become legal gold now that the government confiscated it?

Now it REALLY gets stolen...

 

[pmbug]

It sounds like illegal gold mining is damaging the Amazon ecosystem. Brazil developed a system to identify 'signatures' from different mining areas and that's how they caught the two New Yorkers mentioned in the OP.

...
Ouro Alvo, or “Clean Gold,” was launched in 2019 when Brazil’s current illegal mining boom was gathering pace. Since then, the police’s scientific experts have been collecting samples and conducting analyses to be able to identify gold from different regions of the country, whether from the Yanomami land or the Madeira River.

In these analyses, the experts combine different methodologies to obtain information about the molecular composition of the gold, its atomic structure, and the morphological features of each sample.

With this information, the police are creating a collection of unique gold signatures from each of the country’s mining regions, and feeding it into a database called Ouroteca.

So now, when they need to confirm the origin of a suspicious sample, they can simply analyze it and compare the results to Ouroteca to know with a high degree of confidence where the gold comes from.

On Apr. 1, investigative journalism outlet Repórter Brasil and NBC reported on how two alleged American gold smugglers and a Brazilian had their 35 kg (77 pounds) gold cargo — worth nearly $2.3 million — seized by authorities at Manaus airport after agents inspected it and matched it to a database, confirming its illicit origins.

The idea, according to Moraes, is to eventually contribute to a system similar to, and just as effective, as the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme that’s used for combating sales of so-called blood diamonds from conflict regions.
...

More (long):

‘Gold library’ helps Brazil crack down on Amazon’s illegal mining

PORTO VELHO, Brazil — Cruising north in a speedboat along the Madeira River, the signs of Brazil’s illegal gold mining boom are everywhere: mounds of sand extracted from the riverbed sit along the banks, and dozens of smoking dredging rafts operate at full steam. Mongabay reported from the...

news.mongabay.com

 

[Goldhedge]

It sounds like illegal gold mining is damaging the Amazon ecosystem. Brazil developed a system to identify 'signatures' from different mining areas and that's how they caught the two New Yorkers mentioned in the OP.

as if McD's isn't changing the Amazon ecosystem....

 

[nickndfl]

Should have used a submarine.