Hells Angels bikie Dayne Brajkovich bought $27,000 in gold from Perth Mint in Western Australia

CCTV captured the moment an infamous Aussie bikie lined up at a gift shop to buy $27,000 worth of gold – reportedly without any checks on where his money came from.

Heavily tattooed Dayne Brajkovich, 43, with a swastika on his chin and “Bad News” scrawled across his forehead, bought the gold from Perth Mint in June.

The Mint is now at the center of an official money laundering investigation amid concerns that the state-owned facility is being targeted by criminals.

Brajkovich, a former sergeant-at-arms in the infamous Hells Angels biker gang, was filmed queuing at the Mint’s gift shop to buy about 300 grams of gold on June 13.

Despite his face and body being almost completely covered in tattoos, the convicted criminals demanded that Mint staff not ask him for his driver’s license until the sale.

“Dyne Brajkovich is definitely a red flag,” financial crime expert and author Nathan Lynch tells ABC’s Four Corners on a show investigating the Mint that airs Monday night.

“He’s a well-known entity, and it would be quite difficult to argue that an organization knew nothing about that reputation.

‘But that doesn’t matter. They are legally obliged to look at customers who come to their door, to know who they are and to look at their background.’

Brajkovich, who wears a chunky gold chain he says is worth $200,000, has been convicted of assault following a fight in a Perth bar with rebel boss Nick Martin.

He was later kicked out of the Western Australian Hells Angels in January 2022 after a brawl with the gang’s president.

The Mint’s CCTV footage obtained by the ABC appears to show that Brajkovich had covered many of his tattoos with black makeup on his face and hands to comply with WA bike laws that prohibit gang tattoos in public.

There is no suggestion that the money he used for the transaction came from illegal activity, but experts say alarm bells should have been ringing when he arrived at the Mint.

High-risk clients should attract “rigorous” checks by Mint staff to ensure that criminal proceeds are not used to buy gold as part of a money laundering scheme.

“You can melt it, you can move it. It’s very hard to trace back to where it came from,” financial crime expert Moyara Ruehsen told Four Corners.

“Gold is a money launderer’s dream.”

Perth Mint sells $20 billion worth of gold every year, but Australian financial crime organization AUSTRAC is now investigating allegations of money laundering and possible violations of counter-terrorism laws.

It faces fines of hundreds of millions of dollars if found to have broken the laws, with WA taxpayers footing the bill if convicted as it is guaranteed by the state government.

The Mint is also accused of failing to record 5,000 international money transfers in just nine months, with a possible $21 million fine for each violation, as well as possible criminal charges.

Investigators are also studying ties to Puerto Rican-based Euro Pacific Bank, which has $25 million in allegedly untraceable client funds stashed at the Mint.

The bank is said to have deposited the amount in one account with money from several customers with no details about their identities or source of their wealth, although the founder of the Mint and Euro Pacific, Peter Schiff, denies this.

United Nations adviser on money laundering and former Australian Federal Police investigator John Chevis warns that it leaves the Mint wide open to serious allegations.

At worst, he says the Mint may have been holding gold for terrorist organizations, drug cartels and dictators hiding criminal wealth.

Euro Pacific was shut down by authorities in July because it did not have enough capital to continue its operations, but it denies any ties to criminals or organized crime and insists it follows all laws.

“Australia’s Four Corners just published lies about my bank,” Mr Schiff tweeted Monday.

They allege that thousands of customers used the bank to illegally evade taxes and that the bank deliberately concealed the customer’s identity from the Perth Mint.

“Both allegations are demonstrably false.”

The Perth Mint told the ABC that its “customer relationship with Euro Pacific Bank was terminated in November 2020.”

It said “the case was complex, specialized legal advice was being sought and appropriate action would be taken once finalized.”

WA Prime Minister Mark McGowan defended the Mint last year, insisting it was just a series of administrative errors rather than criminally motivated.

“It’s not a question of fraud or impropriety or anything like that, it’s a clerical error,” he said at a news conference.

“But I’m sure they’ll put it right as soon as possible.”

This week he told Four Corners, “There has been a management change… an audit is being conducted.

‘The Mint complies with the processes covered by the audit and the Mint itself invests heavily in anti-criminal behavior and compliance measures.’

Perth Mint told Daily Mail Australia it was complying with its legal obligations.

“This includes reviewing all clients in accordance with the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006 and guidance from regulators such as AUSTRAC and the relevant law enforcement agencies,” said a spokesperson.

“Under AML/CTF law, entities providing a designated service are required to perform KYC identity checks on customers who purchase bullion worth $5,000 or more.

The Perth Mint goes beyond this requirement by obtaining identity information from any person spending $2,000 or more in bullion.

“As part of its compliance with the AML/CTF Act, the Perth Mint is required to file a Suspicious Matters Report with AUSTRAC if we suspect that an individual or transaction is related to a crime.”