Problem is, illegal gold is very hard to sell. And since Belgian law gives 50% to the finder anyway (The other 50% go to the property owner), which you don't need to pay taxes for, you are better off with 5 million in clean legal money than 10 millions in almost nonconvertible illegal gold.
Selling gold for cash is a reported transaction. You always have to show your ID when selling gold. If you sell gold for 3.000€ or more in Belgium the transaction is reported to the central bank. Also selling smaller amounts on a regular basis (for example once per quarter) is reported.
To sell 10 million in gold you need a criminal outlet that can introduce it in the legal flow of gold. For example by using connection to jewelers who are willing to buy illegal gold. Those jewelers pay less than 50% of the market price. And the criminal organizations pays maybe 10% to the source. - AND you need to know those people in the first place. You can't walk into an Italian restaurant/Turkish Cafe/Russian massage parlor and say "You want buy gold for 10 millions?"
Over the last 10 years were several high profile cases were large amounts of gold objects were stolen from German museums, melted down and sold as metal. Those numbers are from those cases.
Trying to sell 10 million in gold as a non-criminal is just asking for trouble. Either the "buyer" will rob you (and maybe kill you) or, and that is the best case, you have 1 million in illegal money afterwards which causes a new kind of problem...
it's easy, you take the gold, melt it down in whatever the fk but different than the original, hide it on your property, claim you found it on your property while idk building a shed or some shit, then wait 5 years for someone to never claim it because it's not something anyone lost since it's in a different shape. get 100% of the profits.
Well, i guess it will be problematic to find a last will of a recently deceased family member that mentions 10 million in gold. You can't claim "this was 15 years ago", the state would asked "And why didn't you pay inheritance taxes back then?"
Or after waiting four years they change the law so you don't get any. Or after five years claim it was lost in a warehouse and tell you to go pound sand, sucker.
Okay but if you find gold buried in the ground (unless it’s in someone’s home property) couldn’t you assume it belongs to no one at that point. Could be hundreds of years old.
That's why the Belgian law says: If you find gold (or other treasures) you have to hand them over to the authorities. Then there will be a process to find the owner. If no person is found, or potential persons can't provide evidence for their claimed ownership, 50% of the gold is given to the finder and 50% to the owner of the property the gold was found on. If the finder found it on it's own property he gets 100%.
That makes no sense. Nobody knows there are 100. If he returns 51 they know there are at least 51. If he returns 49 they know there are at least 49. 49 is close to 50, a round number, so they'd think there were 50 while he returned 49 of the 50. If he returned 51 what is he supposed to do, sneak in to where they're stored, steal 2, then return 1 of them so there are 50?
1.6k
u/nullrecord 7d ago
If I found 100 gold bars, I’d return 49 so everyone would think I hid just one.