Fun on Friday: Close Your Vault

I want Fun on Friday to be, well, fun. But I also want to provide a public service to you, my dear readers. Today, I have a really good pro-tip for you.

Close your vault.

And lock it.

Because do you know what happens when you don’t close and lock your vault? Somebody will steal your gold.

Now, I don’t just throw speculation at you fine folks. I bring you real-world examples to back up my assertions. As evidence that closing and locking your safe is good advice, I bring you the Mexico federal mint.

Now you would think that a mint that deals with millions of dollars worth of gold coins would be pretty savvy about closing and locking vaults. And you would think wrong.

According to news reports, three armed robbers got away with more than 1,500 gold coins worth about $2.5 million. The coins were reportedly taken from an open vault.

See what I’m saying – close your vault! And lock it.

According to a Reuters report, one of the robbers was able to fill his backpack with approximately 1,567 gold coins after breaking into the “Casa de Moneda” branch.

The coins, known as ‘centenarios,’ have a face value of 50 pesos, but trade for 31,500 pesos ($1,610) apiece, according to Mexican bank Banorte. That makes the total value of the haul at least $2.5 million.”

I have to pause here for a moment and give backpack-man mad props. I did a little math. OK, actually, I’m a journalist by training. I don’t do any math. I just plugged some numbers into a website. But there are numbers involved. So, in a sense, I did a little math. Anyway, the math tells us that the total weight of those 1,567 coins totaled nearly 144 pounds. (Each coin weighs 41.67 grams if you want to do the math yourself.) That’s a pretty darn heavy backpack to haul out of a place in a hurry. Dude must have eaten his Wheaties.

Now, according to CNN, “initial investigations revealed that security protocols were not followed.”

Ummm, yeah. The vault door was left open so robbers could walk right in. I sure hope that wasn’t the security protocol!

When I first saw the headline, I was a little suspicious. This is a national mint. How do three men just waltz in, happen to find an open vault and then traipse and out with millions in gold? It’s can’t be that easy. There has to be more to it. And there probably was. According to CNN, “the guard and two other staff members who were working at the time have been taken in for questioning.”

Ah yes. The good ol’ inside job.

This story goes along with the Fun on Friday article I wrote a couple of weeks ago about a gold robbery in Brazil. Those robbers had to work a little harder for their haul. They faked being federal cops so they could drive out onto an airport tarmac. No wide-open vault for them.

So, what have we learned here?

Leaving your vault open and unlocked is a less than ideal security protocol.

You know what’s even worse security protocol? Putting your gold in a cardboard box under your bed.

SchiffGold has gold-storage solutions that are a lot better. You can learn more about that HERE and HERE. Of course, closing and locking is still on you.

Have a good weekend!

Fun on Friday is a weekly SchiffGold feature. We dig up some of the off-the-wall and off-beat stories relating to precious metals and share them with you – with tongue firmly planted in cheek. Click here to read other posts in this series.