Wilmington Precious Metals Depository Owner Sentenced for Fraud Scheme

A West Chester, PA, man has been sentenced for fraud. US District Judge Maryellen Noreika sentenced 69 year old Robert Higgins last week to the statutory maximum term of 65 years in federal prison. Court documents show Higgins owned and operated First State Depository – a precious metals depository in Wilmington. First State Depository held over $100-million in customer assets – primarily in the form of gold and silver bars and coins. Over the course of at least 10 years, Higgins misappropriated his customers’ assets to pay his debts and finance his personal life. Evidence presented at trial revealed Higgins stole at least $76-million from his customers and that over 1000 customer accounts were missing precious metals – possibly the largest theft from from a precious metals depository in US history.

Additional information from the US Attorney for the District of Delaware:
Over the course of at least a decade, Higgins misappropriated his customers’ assets to pay his debts and finance his personal life, including two timeshares in Hawaii and vacations to foreign countries. He did all of this while under-reporting his income on his federal income tax returns.

Acting U.S. Attorney Steinberg stated, “Higgins lied to, cheated, and stole from customers who placed their trust in him and his businesses during a 10-year fraud scheme.  He took his customers’ metals without their permission and used them to finance his personal life and keep his scheme going, all while failing to report and pay his fair share of income taxes.  By robbing his many victims of their hard-earned life savings and retirement funds, Higgins irreparably hurt hundreds of people and their families.  I applaud the FBI and the IRS-Criminal Investigation Division for their hard work to hold Higgins accountable.”

“Honest and law-abiding citizens are fed up with the likes of those who use deceit and fraud to line their pockets with other people’s money as well as skirt their tax obligations,” stated Yury Kruty, Special Agent in Charge, IRS-Criminal Investigation, Philadelphia Field Office.

“The more his greed grew, so did his shameful and selfish scheme. This sentence reflects how egregious Higgins’ crimes truly are. Let this be a lesson to other criminals that the FBI and our partners will not tolerate corruption or those seeking to take advantage of hardworking Americans,” said FBI Baltimore Acting Special Agent in Charge Amanda Koldjeski.

This case was investigated by the FBI and IRS-Criminal Investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Alexander P. Ibrahim and Bryan C. Williamson, as well as former Assistant U.S. Attorney Edmond Falgowski, prosecuted the case.