Tag - Fake Gold

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Monday, June 29 2020

Mystery of $2bn of loans backed by fake gold in China

More than a dozen Chinese financial institutions, mainly trust companies, loaned 20 billion yuan ($2.8 billion) over the past five years to Wuhan Kingold Jewelry Inc. with pure gold as collateral and insurance policies to cover any losses.

What could go wrong?

Well, plenty, as at least some of 83 tons of gold bars used as collateral turned out to be nothing but gilded copper.

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Thursday, August 29 2019

Fake-branded bars slip dirty gold into world markets

Gold bars fraudulently stamped with the logos of major refineries are being inserted into the global market to launder smuggled or illegal gold, refining and banking executives tell Reuters. The fakes are hard to detect, making them an ideal fund-runner for narcotics dealers or warlords.

In the last three years, bars worth at least $50 million stamped with Swiss refinery logos, but not actually produced by those facilities, have been identified by all four of Switzerland’s leading gold refiners and found in the vaults of JPMorgan Chase & Co., one of the major banks at the heart of the market in bullion, said senior executives at gold refineries, banks and other industry sources.

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Wednesday, November 1 2017

Fake gold not ours, mint says

A gold bar purchased in Ottawa that turned out to contain no gold did not come from the Royal Canadian Mint, the Crown corporation said Tuesday.

But despite the mint's claim that counterfeits are rare, a quick internet search shows such products abound.

"This is not a one-off. Nobody does this once. The real question is, how did this get into RBC's inventory?"

Bosse said most buyers never question the authenticity of gold bars purchased from banks.

"They know they bought it from a bank, so they're sure that it's good. But that concept is now under attack if there's more than one of these out there."

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Monday, October 30 2017

Royal Canadian Mint-stamped gold wafer appears to be fake

The Royal Canadian Mint is investigating how a sealed, "pure gold" wafer with proper mint stampings may in fact be a fake.

The one-ounce gold piece, which was supposed to be 99.99 per cent pure, was purchased by an Ottawa jeweller on Oct. 18 at a Royal Bank of Canada branch. Yet tests of the bar show it may contain no gold at all.

When neither the mint nor RBC would take the bar back, jeweller Samuel Tang contacted CBC news.

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Friday, May 6 2016

China's latest export boom: Fake gold coins

Chinese crooks are minting fakes in large quantities and selling them on the Internet.

"The average person probably would not be able to tell the difference between a real coin and a counterfeit,"

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Wednesday, March 9 2016

Beware of Fake PAMP Suisse Gold Bars

A new wave of counterfeit PAMP gold bars are making the rounds. These new fakes show much better quality than earlier attempts, especially with the packaging. Previous fake PAMP Suisse gold bars have been easily detected when compared to the real thing

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Sunday, September 13 2015

Bank Caught Using Fake Gold As Reserve Capital In Russia

According to Russia's Banki.ru, as part of a probe in the Admiralty bank, the central bank regulator questioned the existence of the bank's reported quantity of precious metals held in reserve. Citing a source, Banki.ru notes that as part of its probe, instead of gold, the "regulator found gold-plated metal."

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Friday, September 12 2014

How To Test For Fake Gold And Silver

Many precious metals investors like the idea of physical bullion because, unlike paper money, it is difficult to counterfeit. That said, when there is a will, there is a way. In recent years, there have been extremely concerning cases of gold counterfeit, and investors that are not fully prepared can get duped.

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Saturday, June 7 2014

All that glitters: businessman 'who bought HK$270m of gold' ends up with metal bars

Police were last night making arrangements with a mainland businessman to check whether HK$270 million of gold bullion he bought in Africa was genuine after part of the consignment was swapped with metal bars.

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Wednesday, June 4 2014

Fake Tungsten Gold Coins - US Gold Eagle

Goldcoinbalance.com has discovered a fake Gold Eagle one ounce that passes the tests for weight, size and thickness. Our GoldCoinBalance Guarantee has always stated that we would pay the spot gold price for any gold coin that passes all three tests of the GoldCoinBalance. We were so confident in our product’s ability to spot the fakes we offered this guarantee. However, we recently received a coin and letter from a customer who had purchased a Gold Coin that passed the tests, but was a FAKE Tungsten Coin. So unfortunately, we can no longer buy Kugerrands or American Eagle Gold Coins that pass the Goldcoinbalance tests. Someone is making Tungsten core fake coins that do pass the test!!! Buyer Beware!!

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