Should I come clean with the police?

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AztekShine

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 7, 2012
Messages
336
Location
Rogers,AR
So I'm moveing to a new state in 3 days. And I plan on running a fairly large operation within a month. Weather or not you think I'm going to be pulling tones of gold... Should I just come out and tell the police I'm playing with chems For refineing ,or not?
 
AztekShine said:
So I'm moveing to a new state in 3 days. And I plan on running a fairly large operation within a month. Weather or not you think I'm going to be pulling tones of gold... Should I just come out and tell the police I'm playing with chems For refineing ,or not?
So long as you process for pleasure, it would be my opinion that you should fly under the radar, but do things properly, so when you are contacted by the police (a nosy neighbor complaint, for instance) everything will be in order. None of us have an obligation to report to ANYONE so long as we are not breaking laws. I'm assuming you intend to remain in the US.

If you expect you'll be dealing with the public and buying/selling, yeah, probably a good idea to talk with the police, as well as the regulatory authorities where you intend to move. You may, otherwise, find yourself outside the law. Do not expect that the laws where you live now are the same where you intend to move.

Sort of reminds me of making U turns when I was a kid. They were illegal in one town, except at intersections. A near town made it illegal to make a U turn in an intersection. You simply have to know what the law is. Logic doesn't seem to matter.

Harold
 
Coming from a family full of Law Enforcement, I'd have to agree. "Its better to ask forgiveness than permission" in some cases. Either way, you might mention to your new neighbors that you refine. Where I'm from, when you see a man in an A-shirt (wife-beater) wearing rubber gloves & galoshes.... The first thing that comes to mind is not "Oh! An aspiring metal refiner!"
 
Jason1 said:
Either way, you might mention to your new neighbors that you refine.
I found out last week,that this is not a good idea.I always made sure that my neighboors knew what I was doing,and I took the time to show them some gold just in case. Well after our next door neighboor's son robbed us a couple of months ago,his parents took his side,and last week started making phone calls.One of the complaints was that they smelled chemicals from me processing gold.Fortunately for me,I have not processed for months,and there was no evidence of anything here to find.
I cannot believe that I took the time,to take this little punk in my shop,and offer to teach him how to process.
But as I said in another post,I am selling everything I have,and installing a fume hood when I rebuild my shop.Then noone will ever see or smell anything.
 
I don't say anything to anyone, I just make sure I am not affecting their air quality.

It's been my experience, sad as it might seem, that if you give someone the chance to steal, they usually will. It pisses me off but it's usually the good person that explains to their neighbors that gets burned. I hate it that things are this way, but the simple fact, the reality is that as things become worse and worse and our economy does worse, more people are going to be willing to steal from their neighbors, their job, or anyone they can.

I tend to think hiding in the open is the best policy, for example, I keep all the gold I save in powdered form, and only melt what I sell. If I don't tell my neighbors what I am doing, then brown sand looks like brown sand.

I know that the police are suppose to be your friend, but I don't really believe that either. I tend to think the best policy is if they never know I am doing anything with any chemicals. I'm happy if I never have to explain what I am doing to anyone. I don't even tell friends.
 
AztekShine said:
So I'm moveing to a new state in 3 days. And I plan on running a fairly large operation within a month. Weather or not you think I'm going to be pulling tones of gold... Should I just come out and tell the police I'm playing with chems For refineing ,or not?
NOOOooo!! Don't do it! Any thing you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. Tell the police nothing. If they come around ask for a warrant. If they have a warrant, have them wait until you call your lawyer. Say nothing without your lawyer at your side. Do not volunteer anything. The only reason Martha Stewart went to prison was be cause she talked too much. Tell no one what you do.
 
publius said:
AztekShine said:
So I'm moveing to a new state in 3 days. And I plan on running a fairly large operation within a month. Weather or not you think I'm going to be pulling tones of gold... Should I just come out and tell the police I'm playing with chems For refineing ,or not?
NOOOooo!! Don't do it! Any thing you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. Tell the police nothing. If they come around ask for a warrant. If they have a warrant, have them wait until you call your lawyer. Say nothing without your lawyer at your side. Do not volunteer anything. The only reason Martha Stewart went to prison was be cause she talked too much. Tell no one what you do.

I agree 100% loose lips sink ships, law enforcement needs a warrent to search while in your case the EPA does not.

At the other property where I first set up shop had three visits from Envroment, once for refining, a scrap Ford Ranger parts truck sitting in my driveway with another visit over my home foundry. Beware of the welcome wagon.

New neighborhoods are like small comminitys, accepting new comers takes time. I lived in the Birnie house 4 years and never accomplished this acceptance, still own the property and glad we moved to this new place where 90% of my neighbors are Indians.
 
publius said:
AztekShine said:
So I'm moveing to a new state in 3 days. And I plan on running a fairly large operation within a month. Weather or not you think I'm going to be pulling tones of gold... Should I just come out and tell the police I'm playing with chems For refineing ,or not?
NOOOooo!! Don't do it! Any thing you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. Tell the police nothing. If they come around ask for a warrant. If they have a warrant, have them wait until you call your lawyer. Say nothing without your lawyer at your side. Do not volunteer anything. The only reason Martha Stewart went to prison was be cause she talked too much. Tell no one what you do.

IMHO oponion this would be the worst thing you could do. This in thier eyes will imediately make you look like like a meth or crack mfg.

You buck up to them and they will come down double hard on you.

You might be visited by your local inspector or fire marsall. Now while you are at a stand off with them waiting for your attourney, they are at your front door getting a warrent to search your premises, and also calling every other gvt. agency they can get involved in this, local, state & federal. You might have one or two inconsipcous vehicles in front of your house.

So now here you are with your attourney and you have held them off for a few hours from gaining access to your premises. You now have 2-5 police cars, fire & ambulance and thier support vehicles, possibly SWAT for explosives and bomb disposal (sincey they know not of what they will be dealing with), HAZMAT disposal, EPA rep's, city inspector's, and by this time it has gone over the police band so possibly 1-4 news media agencies covering the scene. And all of thier yellow, red, white, blue & green light's flashing and your neighbours are all out looking to see what is going on down the street.

They hand you the warrent to search the premises and you look at your attourney and he says good luck there is nothing more I can do to stop them. And then boom just like that you are in cuffs and they are going thru every inch of your property inside and outside. The men in the white suits will pack up and cart away everything thay looks suspisious on the property. And do you think they do this for free :lol: :lol: . Who do you think will pay the cost of this?

You will then see the EPA guy's start with thier list and every once in a while they need some one to make an example out of. Will that be you? How much will thier fines total up to?

Will you be able to refine any more after this or will you have a bull's eye on your back with your hands tied? What message have you sent to them about our industry and wat we do. How will they treat the next guy they run into doing the same thing.




Here is my personal experience.

I have informed the following people of what I am doing. My imediate neigbors, gas man, electrical utility reader, telephone tec's, cable tec's, city inspector's, city police, fireman with the dept.. All these agencies have access to my property at one time or another. And one of my material suppliers because on large loads I have deilvered their so they can unload material with fork lift and then put into my truck. Now most of these people I have known or worked with for the last 25 years or more. Other than that no one knows what I do except a few people from the forum that have been by.

I do all my processing outside. All of the flight's from the local airport go directly over my house. You can see my processing area when you google my address ( or at least you use to).

This winter the neighbors fence that runs parallel to the back of his house blew down, 2 month's ago he had a crew come in and install a new fence. I come home one afternoon after work and the wife tells me that the fence guy came and knocked on the door and said he needed to work on the fence in our back yard and she told him to go ahead but not to mess with anything in the back yard because there were chemicals back there. Didn't think another thought about it.

Now Tuesday 4 weeks ago I get a call. Mr. Barren this is Chief Fire Marshall so and so. We have had a report of chemicals at your location and would like to stop by and talk to you. I said Ok would Thursday morning at 9:00 be ok with you and he said that would be fine. Thursday comes and it is raining, I get a call from the chief and he askes if we can reschedule for Monday morning because of the rain and I said that would be fine, we can set down and I can show you what I do. He said that would be great, and also an EPA rep will be coming to take samples of what you have on the premises. I said thank you and I will see you Monday morning and I hung up the phone :shock: . Now at this point I probably went flush and light headed and shit a brick.

Many of you have seen the photo Chris posted resently with his bucket's, well dude I'm running right there with you on stacks of bucket's :roll: .

So I proceeded to go into high gear and start cleaning everything up with the idea of moving everything off. Now anyone that works with a lot of bukets will tell you when you start something like that it is time consuming condensing solutions. You know the ones you can put together but there is a lot of shuffeling and siphoning to do.

Well Monday rolls around and I call the chief and tell him I have an emergency tat needs to be addressed that day and that I will be tied up on Tues & Wend and can we reschedule for Thursday morning. He said that would be fine. Now I would like to say that I had everything hauled off but I didn't. But I did get everything cleaned up.

Thursday morning the fire marshall and the city inspector come by( the inspector is a friend 8) ). No EPA rep. :p . I explain in detail what I am doing with gold and silver. The different phases and steps that take place, the reactions that occour and the products produced in thier different steps of production, and the final products of gold and silver after the processes. The different chemicals that are used and how they are obtained or made, and thier uses outside of what I am using them for in processing PM's. I explained how the byproducts are delt with and the process of neutralizing solutions. I also explained the number of years of experience in using these chemicals because of work related activities. And that this is as hobby that I have persued for the last 3 years. He asked his questions and after we were finished I took him to my processing area and he took photo's of the area. He said you seem to know what you are doing. I see no open containers that are getting rained into and over flowing and causing a hazard. His major comment was that you have too much for a residential area and the MAYOR said to clean it up and get it off the premises. I asked him if it was ok to continue this as a hobby on my property and he said yes just don't have so much stuff here. 8) :mrgreen: :p

So you see study what you are doing and learn the processes and what they do and thier dangers and be able to explain them when that certain person comes asking.
 
I'd have to say that Barren's story would almost certainly be the exception, rather than the rule.

I offer the following fundamental: A secret, once given away, cannot be reclaimed.

Barren had an acceptable experience because 1: he rescheduled his appt several times which blew the EPA inspector's schedule and 2: He had a friend/acquaintance in the fire marshall.

You get an aspiring EPA newbie with a clipboard coming to your home on a surprise basis and you could find yourself behind six figures of fines and legal issues. This is just free money to the authorities, and they want it.

It's not an optimistic outlook, I'll definitely grant you.
 
element47 said:
I'd have to say that Barren's story would almost certainly be the exception, rather than the rule.

I offer the following fundamental: A secret, once given away, cannot be reclaimed.

Barren had an acceptable experience because 1: he rescheduled his appt several times which blew the EPA inspector's schedule and 2: He had a friend/acquaintance in the fire marshall.

You get an aspiring EPA newbie with a clipboard coming to your home on a surprise basis and you could find yourself behind six figures of fines and legal issues. This is just free money to the authorities, and they want it.

It's not an optimistic outlook, I'll definitely grant you.

Fortunately for me I came out sqeaky clean on every visit I had although the last guy said on parting that he would be looking into it further. That was over a year ago and never heard back from him.

The last visit was over the foundry, when the furnace is fired the propane burner makes a great roaring sound, my property in Birnie consisted of 5 lots which gave me some distance from my nearest neighbor - apparently not enough to satisfy everyone.
 
I to have had a visit from the meth lab gestapo. Everything went fine then. Now that I’m building my real lab and not processing under a shed or tree I’ve debated on wither or not to inform the authorities. I was going to just go buy a simple business license just so if they showed up I could say I had some type of professionalism to what I was doing. Then I thought well if I do that I’m placing myself in a category from hobbyist to being regulated as a business. This holds true for pollution laws also. I’ve also taken precautions such as purposely not including a sink or drain in my lab. Even though I have a fume hood with direct exhaust I’m also in the process of designing a scrubber system with a closed reactor system to regulate exhaust, another plus! I’m printing up msds for every chemical you will find and have even went to the trouble of installing the proper fire prevention devices. All solutions are treated and disposed of in accordance with the laws. I’m trying to provide the proper professionalism but still be classified as a hobbyist. All chemicals have been purchased legally and stored in accordance with laws. The video system I have installed is for my protection not only from thieves but the authorities also. All video evidence is recorded and stored off site to prevent confiscation of the video evidence should it be needed. You might show up and give me a hard time but you won’t do it but once after my lawyer files in federal court to stop it. I’m the type to spend what ever it takes to make sure they leave me the heck alone even if it’s costly on my part. My rights will be observed! Bring on the helicopters and the police cars. :mrgreen:
 
i thought i was the only one. :shock: my sons future baby momma was living here and her dad didnt like my son.what do you think he did? i came home from a doctors visit with a yard full of police and firemen.of coarse no drugs were found (and thats what was reported,meth lab). it wound up costing me about $3,000 in bringing electrical and underpinning and fines for that up to code, but now every police officer in this area knows i refine gold and i dont expect any more surprise visits.
 
Unfortunately, the reason things are like this is quite simple:

a minority ruins it for the majority of innocent, law-abiding, well-intentioned citizens. As a consequence, you see government start interfering more and more with the daily lives of the citizenry. Happens with guns, cars, smoking, drinking, healthcare, gambling, etc. More people, more problems--pure statistics.

It's not surprising to me the amount of issues forum members have had with the authorities: if you are a LEO and hear a report about some guy doing things with glassware and chemicals, it raises a flag. This isn't 1950 any more, and how many people do they really encounter that are up to good versus those who aren't? Again, this is symptomatic of the times we live in wherein there is little trust between those governing and the governed. Definite loss of synchronicity.


The increasing levels of militarization seen in our police departments (mostly a byproduct of the long lost Wars on Drugs and Terror) is disturbing and probably the harbinger of things to come. Today, we have millions of pages of code, written such that almost everyone is violating some law some time some place.

For the most part, the law cares not for the small things, and the activities of the most irresponsible backyard refiner pale in comparison to those of a large corporation trying to cut corners and save costs. They also have a legal fund to cover their behinds much more effectively than Joe-six pack who is trying to recover some extra beer money from pins or get his family another Christmas present. That said, if "they" want to make a Federal case out of it, the odds are against the little guy. I hope that discretion and commonsense prevail when such matters arise.


Geo, what happened to you is down right criminal and there ought to be prosecution for the unnecessary stress caused to you and your family and any damages to your reputation.
 
I also keep a binder with all my MSDS, including one for Nitrohydrochloric acid =)

I have a Acid and Fire cabinet and keep my chemicals sorted accordingly

I have a safety acid spill kit I picked up from Grainger

I have two fire extinguishers, chemical aprons, protection for face and eyes, signs hung that state clearly "Danger Acid" etc

And now getting ready to install a hood

I don't see any point telling any authority what I am legally doing so long as I am not affecting my neighbors in a negative way, either noise or fumes, etc. I am careful to do anything noisy during the day, and I do all my reactions after dark (don't want anyone seeing a rusty colored gas) and now I will not be doing any reactions unless in a reaction vessel under a hood. The story that is floating around the neighborhood is that I am hand casting led for bullets, which is true I do so for competition, so I just allow people to assume I'm a hobby gunsmith.

However, if I do have any problems, a fire or some other calamity. Anyone coming into my house would immediately be aware of what I have going on, and even have a kit to neutralize acids. I don't feel there is any reason, safety or otherwise, to tell any of my neighbors what kind of chemicals I have and what I am doing with them.. After all, they don't bother to come to my house and offer a list of all the cleaning products, paints and solvents or fertilizers, etc. And really, almost all the chemicals we deal with are also found in common household items people are mixing together on a daily basis all over your neighborhood.
 
Jason1 said:
you might mention to your new neighbors that you refine.
If I'm not mistaken, I discussed secrecy recently. Disclosing that you refine to ANYONE can prove to be a costly mistake. I was burglarized several times, and know without a doubt it was because I had said too much. Received anonymous phone calls afterwards (long before caller ID was available), alluding to the idea that the burglar was looking for my "coin collection", which I did not have, but I had made it known publicly that I refined gold.

Second one, the one that really fries my butt----a new customer approached me with a small sample that "contained gold". We talked at length, and I assured him that the only way anyone could gain access was by cutting through my garage doors, as even opening them triggered the alarm. Windows were alarmed, as was the roof (Litton glass break and impact sensors). Shortly thereafter I left town and was burglarized. Care to venture a guess how access was gained?

When I tried to contact the individual that had left a sample with me, the contact information was worthless. I was set up.

You want to be secure? Keep your mouth shut.

Harold
 
Harold_V said:
You want to be secure? Keep your mouth shut.
That is the best advice ever.
If you have a concern about getting in trouble,then make anonymous calls,to find out what the local laws are.Then you can abide by them just in case,but make no mistake....taking Harold's advice is the ONLY way you can rest assured that noone knows what you are doing.
 
Those calls should come ONLY public/pay phones, or a cellphone with a blocked caller id.
Be advised - that your cell info is still stored at the tower, though it may not be transmitted. All major wireless carriers cooperated willingly with Generalissimo Bush's illegal and unwarranted monitoring of wireless customers voice text and private subscriber info. They were charged with various crimes related to spying on american citizens, conspiracy and sundry civil rights violations. Congress decided not to prosecute so as not to reveal how high or deep this went.
The moral of the story, boys and girls, is id they did it once, they'll do it again if they're told the cause is serious enough. All wireless communication is simply modified FM, with its inherent simplicity to monitor - all you need are the toys,
 
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