Today gold is without a doubt the “star metal” in chemistry because of the focus of attention on gold-catalyzed organic transformations in recent years. 1–7 Among various new transformations catalyzed by gold, those involving nucleophilic additions to CC multiple bonds (alkynes, alkenes or allenes) 8–10 and catalytic CH bond functionalization11, 12, have been studied intensively. In contrast, gold-catalyzed oxidation chemistry, in particular ...