"Gold, but not much glitter; The Fort Knox of Mass. keeps an extra-low profile" by Megan Woolhouse, Globe Staff | August 24, 2010
NORTH ATTLEBOROUGH — Most people outside Massachusetts do not know where this town is, never mind that it is home to one of the country’s biggest gold refineries, a place that regularly churns out gleaming ingots.
Yet Metalor USA Refining Corp. is situated, nonchalantly enough, in an office park here. The concrete compound’s discreet green-and-brown exterior blends into the woodsy landscape, though the seemingly endless razor-wire fencing surrounding it sends a clear “stay out’’ message.
And that’s exactly how Metalor likes it.
“It’s like Fort Knox,’’ said Paul Belham, vice president of the North Attleborough Industrial Park Tenants Association, which represents businesses in the park where the company is located. “They’re very secretive over there.’’
The plant, a vestige of the region’s once grand jewelry making, is one of a handful of US refineries that make prized bars of nearly 24-carat gold. Known as “four-nines,’’ they are stamped 999.9 to indicate they are nearly pure gold.
Are you sure?
See: Tungsten Filled Gold Bars
Who stole the gold, readers?
Does the question even need asking?
Gold moves in and out of the Metalor plant in armored trucks, but exactly where the gold comes from or where it goes is rather mysterious. Competitors and several consultants either declined to speak about the company or did not return phone calls. And when they did, details were slim....
The refining business has benefited from the global recession, as jittery investors’ demand for gold has pushed prices to record highs. A troy ounce of 24-karat gold is now worth more than $1,200, a nearly 400 percent increase in value over the last decade....
Then the blogs and "fringe" were correct when compared to the "economic experts" the Globe often quotes?
In North Attleborough, where Metalor is not a household name, local historians view such refineries as part of the region’s rich jewelry-making heritage. The area from the neighboring town of Attleboro and south to Providence was home to scores of refineries and jewelry makers through the 1950s.
Today, many of the larger operations, like ring maker L.G. Balfour, are gone. In 1997, after 83 years of business in Massachusetts, its owners moved the plant to a Texas border town to take advantage of cheaper labor....
Metalor looks like an ordinary factory, at least until you get to the building’s entrance. A sign posted next to an intercom instructs visitors: “Identify Yourself!’’ and any loitering draws security personnel.
Such precautions are warranted. Two years ago, thieves stole more than $2 million worth of jewelry from a manufacturer six miles away.
An Attleboro police detective, Richard Campion, said the thieves disabled the alarm systems at E.A. Dion Inc., cutting a hole in the roof and extracting a 3,000-pound safe and 52 Super Bowl rings made for the
Hmmmmmmmm.
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One former employee, who did not want to be identified because he signed a confidentiality agreement, said the plant buys mined gold as well as gold from pawn shops, jewelers, and dental offices....
In 2004, the Associated Press reported that Metalor was involved in illegal financial transactions that resulted in the laundering $4.5 million in drug money.
According to the story, an investigation by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency revealed that couriers were picking up gold refined at Metalor and repackaging it in shampoo bottles and other containers they smuggled into South America....
Despite the case, many residents of Jewelry City, as Attleboro is known, said they knew little about the gold bricks in their midst....
Attleboro is as AmeriKan as they come!
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