A former Royal Canadian Mint employee who smuggled out 22 gold nuggets from the secure facility in Ottawa by hiding them in his rectum was Thursday sentenced to 30 months in prison. Leston Lawrence, 35, will also have to pay a fine of 190,000 Canadian dollars (145,800 dollars) within three years of being released from prison. Ontario Court judge Peter Doody ruled that between November 2014 and March 2015 the former Mint employee stole 22 gold "pucks" worth about 165,451 dollars. Lawrence was also convicted of possession of property obtained by crime, smuggling gold from the mint, laundering proceeds of crime and breach of trust by a public official. Lawrence's job was to purify gold in a process that involved melting gold purchased by the Mint from various sources. Because the purity of the gold varied, the Mint could never know in advance precisely how much gold of 99.5 per cent purity each new batch would yield. To test the purity, Lawrence would take a sample of the molten gold in a ladle and once the sample cooled to a gold nugget called a "puck," it was supposed to be analyzed for purity and then added back into the smelter. Instead, with plenty of places to hide from the only CCTV camera surveying the large room in which he worked, Lawrence would use latex gloves and Vaseline found in his locker to insert the puck into his rectum. Lawrence was eventually caught after a vigilant bank employee notified police in February 2015 that Lawrence asked her to cash two cheques worth $15,200 from Ottawa Gold Buyers. Lawrence had told her he had sold "gold nuggets," the court heard.
