Gold laundering is the process whereby illegally obtained gold is melted and recast into another form. The recasting is performed to obscure or conceal the true origin of the gold. The recast gold is then sold, thus laundering it into cash.
As Minister of Economics, Walther Funk accelerated the pace of rearmament and as Reichsbank president banked for the SS the gold rings of Nazi concentration camp victims
Metal theft is "the theft of items for the value of their constituent metals". It usually increases when worldwide prices for scrap metal rise, as has happened dramatically due to rapid industrialization in India and China. Apart from precious metals like gold and silver, the metals most commonly stolen are non-ferrous metals such as copper, aluminium, brass, and bronze. However, even cast iron and steel are seeing higher rates of theft due to increased scrap metal prices.
British police officers checking for stolen metal at a scrap metal merchant
Police in the United Kingdom check a scrap van for questionable items.
All bronze components (portrait and letters) of this memorial have been removed (Vienna, Austria).
Metal theft from a memorial at the Union Buildings, Pretoria