Gold delivered by diplomats
The Geneva convention allows diplomats to travel with their own personal belongings unchecked at the customs. Gold brought by diplomats are very rarely personal belongings. Basically you must assume that gold in the possession of a diplomat is illegal.
Another advantage of having a diplomatic status is the penalty imposed on you. A normal reaction from the country in question is to declare the person as person ‘Non Grata’ followed by a few hours to leave the country.
For my Italian buying bank I was approached from Sierra Leone of gold in Italy. Eventually it was established that the gold should be in Torino, not custom cleared.
From the shipping documents it showed that the gold had been on its way for one month. The export documents also showed a buyer in Switzerland and the gold was to be sent in transit via Torino to the buyer in Switzerland.
Then the diplomat had fully understood the buyer was a bank. A bank that could arrange the customs necessary custom clearance if the diplomat just could produce the correct documents. The bank can also only pay gold after refining and assay at an approved refinery.
The seller preferred to have 2 kilo of the 40 kilo brought to a refinery for verification. This is a procedure not acceptable in any way. At this time we had signed a SPA with the seller in the country of origin accepting the bank’s procedures.
The seller’s representatives including the diplomat was never more to be heard of.
Scam or not only the seller’s representatives can know. The likelyhood is as close to 100% you can get.
If you have gold and real documents and want to sell to a bank, then you are welcome.
Just remember payment only after refining at buyer’s refinery in Italy.
