Gold jewellery has been found to be a favoured mechanism for money and gold laundering, particularly in Latin America. For example, in 2019 the Colombian Attorney General’s Office uncovered a gold trafficking operation that moved more than 19 billion pesos worth of pure Colombian gold bars to Panama in return for Italian gold jewellery. This jewellery was then smuggled back into Colombia, where the leaders of the criminal operation distributed and sold the jewellery, effectively laundering large sums of narcotics proceeds. The operation was carried out by human couriers with assistance from immigration officials.