Gold Company Manager Charged in Vast Peruvian Smuggling Plot
Gold Company Manager Charged in Vast Peruvian Smuggling Scheme
(Bloomberg) -- The operations manager at a metals-refining company was charged with helping run a gold smuggling network that reaped billions of dollars for illegal mines controlled by drug dealers and other criminals in South America.
A criminal complaint against Juan Pablo Granda, 35, outlines a vast conspiracy involving employees at NTR Metals to buy huge amounts of gold from illegal mines in Peru that support human trafficking, forced labor and environmental devastation. The scheme allowed the NTR Metals office in Miami to launder billions of dollars for criminal organizations -- including Peruvian narco-terrorists -- by buying gold from mines they control, according to the U.S. complaint filed in Miami.
The charges signal a U.S. crackdown on smugglers exploiting a spike in worldwide consumption of gold mined illegally in the Amazon basin, where laborers use fire hoses and mercury to extract the nearly pure precious metal.
On March 9, Bloomberg Businessweek detailed how smugglers, refiners and traders supply gold moving from illegal mines in Latin America, through Miami, and into the international market. The report focused on one Chilean smuggler who sold thousands of pounds of illegally mined or contraband gold, mainly to NTR’s Miami office, before his arrest last year in Santiago.
Dallas-based NTR Metals isn’t charged in the case. The company, also known as Elemetal Direct, is one of eight divisions of Dallas-based Elemetal LLC. Trey Gum, general counsel for Elemetal, declined to comment.
Granda, who was arrested Wednesday, appeared Thursday in handcuffs in federal court in Miami, where he was ordered detained until a bail hearing on March 20. Granda’s attorney, Edward O’Donnell IV, said he is from Miami, but was running NTR operations in Cali, Colombia. O’Donnell wasn’t immediately available for further comment.
U.S. customs records “strongly suggest” that NTR began buying illegal gold in Peru in 2012, according to the complaint by Homeland Security Investigations and the FBI. NTR then began “smuggling illegal gold through a shifting array of Latin American countries,” eventually importing $3.6 billion worth from 2012 to 2015, according to the complaint.
“For all of the billions of dollars’ worth shipped from Latin America to NTR in Miami, NTR sent billions of dollars in wire payments to Latin America from the United States,” HSI agent Colberd Almeida wrote in an affidavit filed March 10 under seal in federal court in Miami.
‘Illegal Mining’
Granda conspired with two salespeople and others who knew the transactions involved “organized crime, gold smuggling and entry of goods into the U.S. by false means and statements, illegal mining, and narcotics trafficking, all in the hopes of creating more profits for themselves and NTR,” Almeida wrote.
Bloomberg reported on March 9 that a Chilean smuggler, Harold Vilches, had told U.S. and Chilean prosecutors that he sold 4,000 pounds of illegally mined gold, mostly to NTR Metals Miami. Vilches, in sworn statements to the FBI and Chilean prosecutors, said two NTR employees in Miami knew his gold was illegal and coached him on how to smuggle it into the U.S.
After Vilches was charged June 1 with fraud in Chile, Gum told Bloomberg, NTR “reported the matter to appropriate governmental authorities” and ordered NTR Metals Miami to “suspend all operations in Chile pending a review of current risks and procedures in that country.” The two NTR employees denied Vilches’s assertions and said they trusted documents showing it was legal.
Social Issues
Illegal gold smuggling and money laundering have become prominent social and political issues in Latin America, and several countries have begun investigations, “many of which involve gold being sold to NTR,” Almeida wrote.
In 2013, Peru seized $18 million worth of gold bound for refineries in Miami and elsewhere, including NTR. One company sending gold to NTR was financed by a Peruvian acquitted of narcotics money laundering but arrested for his role in a $500 million gold scheme, according to the U.S. He is identified in the criminal complaint only as P.F.
After the Peruvian raid, smuggled gold was moved to Bolivia before heading to NTR in Miami, according to Almeida. Last year, Ecuador made arrests in a $400 million money laundering scheme involving gold mined in Peru and bound for NTR, the agent wrote. Chile also made arrests stemming from investigations into gold from Peru and Argentina that was sold to NTR, Almeida wrote.
‘Highly Suspicious’
Beyond “highly suspicious gold imports” from Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia, NTR also turned to Chile, Guyana and the Caribbean, the U.S. said.
Granda and colleagues identified as Salespersons 1 and 2 engaged in a “smiling and dialing” campaign to learn who had gold to sell, forming relationships and pitching NTR, according to the complaint. They invited customers to the U.S. to tour NTR facilities, entertaining them and promising to pay for gold faster than other refineries.
The complaint details some of the encrypted group chats that Granda and his confederates sent on their cell phones. Almeida said Granda referred to himself as a “modern-day Pablo Escobar” -- the Colombian drug boss killed in 1993.
“I’m like Pablo coming to Ecuador to get the coke,” he said, according to the complaint.
Granda and Salesperson 1 bragged to each other about their gold “mules,” sending pictures of young men carrying backpacks.
Several confidential sources in Latin America and the U.S. spelled out details of the use of front companies to move dirty money, the U.S. said. One source helped the smuggler referred to as P.F. “in exporting illegally mined gold without any documentation to NTR through a series of front companies,” according to the complaint.
Granda asked this source about a scheme to avoid suspicion by exporting gold in small volumes through many companies rather than one bigger company, according to the complaint.
To contact the reporters on this story: Michael Smith in Miami at mssmith@bloomberg.net, David Voreacos in federal court in Newark, New Jersey, at dvoreacos@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Glovin at dglovin@bloomberg.net, Peter Blumberg