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The gold rush: A WAFF 48 News special report

By Mark Thornhill - bio | email

HUNTSVILLE, AL (WAFF) - With the price of gold at an all-time high, and the economy at an historic low, there's a different sort of "gold rush" underway.

Companies are buying gold from consumers who are eager to sell it.

But thieves are also involved in this gold rush.

While it's easy for law-abiding citizens to turn their gold into cash, how easy is it for thieves to turn stolen gold into cash?

Way back in 1849, people known as the 49ers made the trek to California to try and strike gold.

Nowadays, a different sort of gold rush is as close as your computer.

Companies like Cash4Gold are offering, well, cash for gold.

Take a white gold ring, which I actually did take, with permission from my co-worker Brian Temple.

This ring isn't stolen, but let's say it was. Brian was looking to sell it anyway.

For years, the most common stop would be a pawn shop. 

"If you go to a pawn shop, you've got the advantage of having to deal with a real human being. This takes all that out," said Brian.

And it's easy. Too easy, said officer Nathan Nickelson, the director of Huntsville Area Crime Stoppers.

"If it's an easy way to make money, that's the way the criminal element's going to fall," he said.

If you're dealing with gold thieves looking to sell their bounty quickly, Nickelson agreed that some internet companies pose a real problem tracking down the bad guys.

At least with a pawn shop, he said, they get your name, a license number, and give you a pawn ticket.

"Now I can put that same gold in the mail. A couple of weeks later, get the money and there's absolutely no record," said Nickelson.

As I filled out the information, the only apparent road-block is this section called "terms and conditions".

It asks if you're 21 and if you're the legal owner of any jewelry you are attempting to sell.

"They're taking you at your word," said Brian.

Four days later, I received a bag to put the ring in along with a business envelope to send it back.

I didn't even have to buy a stamp

We put Brian's ring in the bag and sent the envelope to Cash4Gold.

I then received a check in the mail in the amount of $98.74.

"That's about right. Probably as much as I'd get from a pawn shop," said Brian.

But our story took a little twist. Cash4gold is located in Pompano Beach, Florida. 

Florida is the only state in the country to pass legislation aimed at regulating this internet gold-buying industry.

Talking with Jeff Aronson, the president of Cash4Gold, he said his company actually does have a "safety net" in place to help catch thieves trying to sell stolen gold.

That procedure includes photographing and documenting every item they receive.

The pictures and information are then put on a database, which law enforcement can access.

"We get everything needed by law enforcement to prosecute somebody who is sending in stolen merchandise," said Aronson.

The checks that are sent out even leave a paper trail.

"When they deposit the check, we get their banking information," Aronson continued.

Without knowing Cash4Gold's system, officer Nathan Nickelson with Huntsville Area Crime Stoppers described it almost verbatim when we asked him how this problem could be headed off.

"Photos or markings. There's got to be a way for the company to verify where that gold is coming from, so we can track it," said Nickelson.

No system is fool-proof. And my co-worker, Brian Temple, sees a few holes here.

"You've got to know it's gone. You've got to report it missing and you have to know when it was sent for them to look in their records," said Brian.

Or what if it's sent to any one of the other hundreds of gold-buying sites, who don't have any security checks?

It would be like trying to find a needle in a haystack, or a ring in a melting pot.

You know if you just send it in to someone who has a little website somewhere, none of that's going to happen and it may wind up getting melted down," said Aronson.

Aronson said he hopes the other 49 states, the modern-day 49er's, will follow Florida's lead.

"We only hope everybody will follow the lead we did here and it'll be regulated in every state the same way," he said.

In a related crime story, police in Waynesboro, Tennessee arrested a man who broke into a home through a doggie door and stole some gold.

22-year-old Tim Holt then sent the stolen gold to Cash4Gold.

Police contacted Cash4Gold, and they used that photo system to identify and retrieve the stolen gold, and then arrest Tim Holt.

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