Leave your jewellery at home
Guyanese, avoid wearing gold jewellery in public places.
If possible leave your jewels at home to avoid being targeted by bandits.
This is an advisory by the Guyana Gold and Diamond Miners Association (GGDMA) which says that crimes related to gold are on the increase due to the current rocketing prices of the metal on the international and local markets. The price of gold reached US$1540 an ounce on the London bullion market this week, a price which translates to around $16,000 to $17,000 per pennyweight of gold on the local market.
Gold was yesterday being bought and sold at US$1535 per ounce.
Executive Director of the GGDMA, Mr. Edward Shields,  said that these prices augured well for its members, the  small miners especially.
“Thanks to the situation, the small miner, the guys with their shovels and battels, are having better pay days,”   he said.
The downside however is the growing rate of crimes involving the precious metal.
There has been an upsurge in robberies and murders related to thefts of gold in many hinterland locations and even on the coastland.
Early Thursday morning, President of the Guyana Gold and Diamond Miners Association (GGDMA), Charles Da Silva, was chopped on his head and robbed on the Liliendaal seawall.
Da Silva who usually goes to the seawall early in the morning to exercise, was attacked in the vicinity of the Medex building around 6:00hrs by two men.
He attempted to fight off the men, one of whom was armed with a cutlass. But on being chopped he began bleeding profusely and eventually gave up the fight.
The men robbed him of his gold chain before escaping in a car.
Da Silva had to be hospitalised.
Mr. Shields, making the advisory, said that there were many incidents of robberies of gold in the hinterland which have gone unreported.
“What we found is that once people are not injured during these robberies they simply are not reported.”
He advised that the police should step up their presence in the hinterland and that qualified persons living in mining communities should be inducted into the Supernumerary Constabulary to beef up the security presence in these communities.
He disclosed too that declaration of gold to the Guyana Gold Board by local miners topped the 100,000 ounces mark on Thursday, a declaration which is dead on target for the amounts projected by the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) for the period.
He congratulated the miners on this achievement and said that there was the real possibility that production within the next two months of the second quarter would exceed targets, given the current favorable market conditions.