NGO Reports Illegal Gold Imports By Refiner

NGO Reports Illegal Gold Imports By Refiner by Paula Dupraz-Dobias, swissinfo.ch

Swiss and Peruvian authorities are working on a case involving a Neuchâtel refiner, Metalor, for suspicion of money laundering and the purchase of illegal gold, according to a Swiss NGO. 

The Bern-based Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) published a report on Wednesday claiming that the major refiner continued to import illegally produced gold from Peru even after that country took widespread measures forbidding production by most of the country’s estimated 100,000 wildcat miners.

The report had been written with a Peruvian investigative journalist, Oscar Castilla.

In January 2014, Peruvian authorities confiscated gold belonging to Famyr Group EIRL, allegedly destined for Metalor. The NGO explained that the Peruvian prosecutor’s office “assumed”...