Illegal sales of gold jump 200% due to crisis

Rome, August 9 - As more Italians are selling their gold jewelry and keepsakes for cash to weather the financial crisis, so too is gold-related crime rising, according to new reports Friday. Trafficking in the precious metal has jumped by 200% compared with last year and to date in 2013, 52 people have been arrested, financial police said. The number of stores offering to buy gold from consumers has soared around Italy, due to the crisis but also thanks to skyrocketing prices for gold over the past decade.
As many as one in four Italians has this year visited one of these stores, seeking to sell a gold item, according to the annual Report on Italy from the Eurispes institute, which analyzes politics, the economy, and society in Italy. At 28%, that figure represents a sizable increase over the 8.5% of Italians offering to sell their precious objects reported last year. This has created a new opening for criminal activity – to date this year, police say they've seized 179 kilos of gold: 86% more than in 2012. They've received 86 complaints of trafficking in precious metals, leading to 52 arrests in several raids and operations around the country in such diverse cities as Modena, Arezzo and Naples, police say.
Linoro Gioielli