The way Gary Barnes sees it, there are “several problems” with the Crown’s case against his client, who is accused of selling more than $130,000 worth of gold stolen from the Royal Canadian Mint.

For starters, Barnes said they can’t prove the gold is stolen, nor can they establish that the bullion once belonged to the mint.

And as for the Crown’s main theory of extraction — that Leston Lawrence lubed up “pucks” of gold with Vaseline, slipped them into his rectum and left the mint undetected — well, they can’t prove that either, Barnes argued.

“They’re not that big,” the defence lawyer said of the allegedly stolen lumps of gold. “They’re about the diameter of an Oreo cookie, and about two-and-a-half times as thick.”

They call that “Double Stuf” in the biscuit business.

The Crown declined to comment on the case when contacted by the Star on Wednesday, because it remains before the courts. The Royal Canadian Mint declined an interview for the same reason.

Lawrence, who is 35 and lives in the suburban community of Barrhaven, was arrested in March 2015 after a teller at a bank in Ottawa flagged his account, Barnes told the Star. He was allegedly selling the pucks to a gold buyer in the same mall as the bank and then depositing the cheques, Barnes said. The Crown alleges that he stole the gold from the mint, where he worked as a refinery operator, and sold 18 pucks between November 2014 and the time of his arrest, Barnes said.

He said Lawrence pleaded not guilty to all charges, which include theft, possession of stolen property, breach of trust, laundering the proceeds of crime and “conveying” metal out of the mint. His six day trial, before Ontario Court Justice Peter Doody, concluded on Tuesday.

But aside from his skepticism of the Crown’s case — unsurprising, given he’s the defence lawyer — Barnes contended that the case brings up a lot of questions about security at the mint. Namely, how could someone — anyone — accomplish what they allege to have happened? What type of monitoring and security does the mint have to prevent the theft of precious metals?

“How it would never occur to anybody at the mint that somebody might do this is astounding to me,” Barnes said.

Mint spokesperson Christine Aquino said in an email that, while personal privacy places limits on how individual employees can be searched, security is taken seriously. She said new security measures have been installed, including upgraded metal detector “arches” at the security checkpoint of the Ottawa headquarters — where the gold is refined — with technology that tracks the compliance of the employees passing through.

Cameras used to watch over workers have also been upgraded to record high definition video and security officers are being trained in “continuous observation” to help them identity people who behave suspiciously, Aquino said.

“Security has been and remains a cornerstone of the mint’s business both in the products we develop and the facilities in which they are produced and stored. We continuously assess and update our security measures and protocols to help us manage potential risks and we are more vigilant than ever,” Aquino said.

As for the theory that gold was smuggled out in someone’s rectum, Toronto-based security expert John Thompson said that it’s possible, even if there were metal detectors. He added that most detectors would probably catch gold inside someone’s body, just as bits of metal from medical procedures or belt buckles often set off the machines.

“Your average security guard isn’t going to want to do a body cavity strip search, especially on someone they see every day,” he said.

Barnes, however, isn’t arguing that it’s impossible to steal gold from the mint. He said he contended in court that the Crown simply cannot prove that the seized gold from Lawrence’s safety deposit box was from the mint.

He did say, though, that the court was told that, to bolster the Crown’s theory that Lawrence allegedly smuggled the gold out with the use of his anal cavity, a security officer tested out the process to see if it was plausible.

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Barnes laughed. “That’s a bit above the call of duty.”

Doody, the judge, is slated to deliver his verdict in Ottawa Nov. 9.