Cash-for-Gold Services

• Criminals can bring cash to purchase gold directly, bypassing extensive identification or record requirements if the service is poorly regulated.
• Conversely, gold obtained illicitly can be quickly turned back into cash, conferring a veneer of legitimate transactional activity.

• Sham gold-buying activities allow criminals to convert illicit cash into supposedly legitimate funds, claiming they originated from purchasing jewelry or gold items.
• This front blurs the actual source of proceeds, exploiting high-value commodities for quick laundering.

• Criminals misrepresent the purity, weight, or value of gold and jewelry to justify receiving or paying large sums of cash.
• Inflated or reduced valuation documents can transform illicit funds into seemingly legitimate proceeds through quick liquidation or staged transactions.

• Illicit actors convert jewelry into cash at fictional or inflated values, disguising the true origins and values of the assets.
• Limited record-keeping and oversight let criminals repeatedly exchange or resell pieces with falsified appraisals, facilitating layering.

• Smuggled gold or other precious metals can be quickly converted to cash, reducing paper trails.
• Criminals exploit unverified or minimal scrutiny transactions, using forged IDs or straw sellers to liquidate illicit commodities.

• Criminals turn illicit proceeds into gold items and quickly convert them back to cash via these services with minimal documentation.
• Inconsistent or lax appraisal standards enable underreporting or overpayment to cloak actual transaction values.

• Provides a quick and direct avenue for converting large volumes of illicit cash into gold (and vice versa), bypassing extensive banking oversight.
• Often subject to weaker KYC controls, enabling criminals to place or integrate illicit funds under the guise of legitimate gold transactions.

• Criminals can purchase gold items or bars with counterfeit currency.
• Gold, being a high-value commodity, can then be resold or traded for legitimate funds, disguising the illicit origin.

• Proceeds from trafficking are exchanged for gold items, circumventing standard banking controls.
• Physical gold transactions can obfuscate money-trail evidence, hiding illicit gains linked to contraband commodities.

• Enables rapid conversion of unlawful precious metals into cash with minimal documentation, obscuring the original illegal source. • Some providers may accept semi-processed or raw gold presented as jewelry, circumventing formal identification checks and hindering AML scrutiny.