UPDATED: Royal Australian Mint reportedly scammed for a million dollars last year

UPDATE: It seems that it’s come to light that the fraud was one perpetrated on the mint and not by an employee as was originally reported. The matter has been referred to the Australian Federal Police so further information isn’t available at present. We’ll update when we know more.

The Australian Financial Review is reporting that last year the Royal Australian Mint was scammed for over a million dollars. Not the usual smuggling of gold out like that experienced by the Japan Mint , this involved nothing more complicated than transferring money out using the online banking portal. Happening last May, the person in question made four payments totalling $1.095m and to date, less than 20% has been recovered.

For those thinking that $1m is a drop in the ocean to a national mint, it isn’t. In 2015-16, the mint made a pre-tax profit of around 3.5 million dollars, so essentially this person took a huge chunk of the money the mint earned in the preceding year.

The Australian Federal Police have been informed and an investigation is currently ongoing. Even so, $915,000 is still missing.