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One Ton Gold Shipment Into Hong Kong Revealed To Contain Just Worthless Metal
Two years ago, stories of fake tungsten-filled gold coins and bars began to spread; it appears, between the shortage of physical gold (after Asian central bank buying) and the increase in smuggling (courtesy of India's controls among others) that gold fraud is back on the rise. As SCMP reports, a mainland China businessman, Zhao Jingjun, discovered that HK$270 million of 998kg of gold bars he bought in Ghana had been swapped for non-precious metal bars. What is perhaps even more worrisome, given the probe into commodity-financing deals and the rehypothecation evaporation; these gold bars were shipped to a Chinese warehouse before Zhao was able to confirm the fraud.
As South China Morning Post reports, 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.
On Wednesday, Zhao Jingjun, 43, opened part of his shipment in front of his buyer in Hong Kong and discovered the gold had been switched for worthless metal.
A senior officer said it would be the city's biggest heist in a decade if it was confirmed that all the gold had been stolen.
An initial inquiry showed Zhao purchased 998kg of gold bars from a company in Ghana in mid-April, police said.
The consignment, in 14 cases, was escorted by his staff and delivered from Ghana on a chartered flight late last month.
"Officers were told that his employee confirmed the cases contained the gold before it was loaded onto the chartered flight in Ghana," a police source said.
The source said the employee left Hong Kong after the consignment was handed to the staff of a logistics company at Chek Lap Kok airport. It was then couriered to a Tsuen Wan warehouse.
The businessman arrived from Hebei province on Monday and checked into the Kowloon Shangri-La hotel in Tsim Sha Tsui. On Wednesday, he had five of the cases couriered to his buyer's Hung Hom office.
"When he opened the boxes, he found they were filled with metal bars instead of gold bullion," the source said. "He told officers the cases appeared to have been tampered with."
...
A police investigator said: "We don't rule out the possibility that the gold bullion may have been switched for metal bars before being delivered to Hong Kong."
Zhao has reportedly made several such transactions. His business activities include the purchase of iron ore from Australia, Africa and South America.
Four years ago, 265 gold bars were taken from a Yuen Long company. Police arrested three men and recovered most of the HK$90 million in bullion stolen.
We can't help but feel this is not the last time as commodity-backed financings are unwound en masse and the underlying collateral found missing... sourcing the underlying by any means will be on the rise.
* * *
For those who want to learn more about China and gold, please read "How China Imported A Record $70 Billion In Physical Gold Without Sending The Price Of Gold Soaring"
For those curious what a fake 10oz bar looks like, here it is again:
It appears in thise case, the fraudsters could not even afford Tungsten (or maybe the Tungsten was rehypothecated elsewhere)...
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Just a one-off.
...again...
dude.... and buying swiss gold in Ghana at "a discount"....
some people whant the deals tat are just to good to be true and happen to be to good to be true...
Imagine the level of Gold fraud when the precious metal goes to USD $10,000.
Imagine the level of Gold fraud when the precious metal goes to USD $100,000,000,000,000.
Fixed it for ya.
It wont be called GOld Fraud but GOLD Murder. I mean people get killed for it already just ask the guys in the hood with the gold around their neck, they are walking targets.
Social Darwinism.
No. Thieves are actually the walking targets...
The Gold is my bait.
Ever walk around with a Hand Grenade??? Who needs a gun?
Even Jesus did not take the forgiven thief down from the cross...
LMAO.
Since frauds tend to suppress the gold price, we'll have major powers incentivized to commit fraud. More fraud, anyway.
It only makes sense when the un-backed market collapses that we see a huge surge in fake physical.
yes, that and unbelievable "never before seen" valuations in equities...
Long instruments that can detect fake PMs.
Especially coins for us shrimps...
Now I understand why people trade with gold dust in the Zimbabwe videos - no need to drill dust.
Ultrasonic thickness gauges for the win.
I own two, one for each 1/10th eagle I bought before losing on that fishing trip.
Where did you get them, seek?
The instruments... :p
Those things are not so good I hear...
http://www.joyfay.com/automatic-digital-melting-furnace-2kg-for-melt-scr...
But the little smelters/melters are the only way you make sure you got real gold since it has its own melting point and nothing can fake that
Cosmos, would you Please quit suggesting people remelt their coins & hallmarked bullion! Have you ever owned an ounce of gold in your life?
Under $1000 USD covers all the non-invasive testing equipment required.
(Is this guy some kinda troll to just fuck people up?)
A bit pricey!!
http://www.amazon.com/Flexbar-Machine-Corporation-15945-Ultrasonic/dp/B0...
Doesn't really help once they perfect tungsten cored coins, even specific gravity measurement won't help ...
just a simple magnet in this case... first I use a magnet on every coin, than the scale and than the dimensions. If they miss by just 0,1 gramm I do a gold or silver test.
Only the older 900 coins may be different by 0,25 gramm max
And when in doubt... just sell them on Ebay :)
ROR - Raugh out Roud!
Sum Ting Wong.
Ho Li Fuk.
Wi Tu Lo!
I was born on a pirate ship
Big trouble in smoggy China?
"... and it's gone."
Vaporized!
Re-re-re-re-hypothecated[infinity].
Which is why it does not exist. It disappeared into an event horizon, they borrowed so much on it from the future that the future is being sucked into the present.
er, em, yeeah. That's where it went.
When fraud is the status quo, possession is the law.
That is all.
Strangely Jon Corzine was seen in Hong Kong around the same time.
You mean he's not under the jail yet? Where' the justice?
The guys that did this are probably working for Goldman now.
Speculation Builds on Michelle Obama Senate Run | NBC Chicago
It wasn't that long ago that such a slogan would seem absurd, but political wags are beginning to wonder whether Michelle Obama is mulling a run for Illinois Sen. Mark Kirk's seat in 2016.
A Thursday column in Reuters suggests that Obama would be the only candidate with a large enough profile to unseat the Republican
WTF!
Chicago philth.
Good time to move from Illinois!
Tranny.
Windy City Wookie
"Large enough profile" = "The Wookie"
He would be pretty intimidating, that's for sure.
"Michelle Obama is mulling a run for Illinois Sen."
Illinois? I thought she lived on Endor?
And she's beautiful, too.
Fun fact: Sex with your horse is still legal in 23 states. This has implications for both MIchelle and John Kerry...
That's one Wonka Bar you don't want to unwrap !
I don't think they won the golden ticket with these bars.
She's an Everlasting Gobstopper or maybe a Vernicious Knid.
Oh the irony of a Chinese guy being ripped off by some cheap imitation knockoffs.
Might be a good time to start a fake commodity / commodity look-alike business.
Let's start a fake gold ETF.
oh...wait....
@i_call_you_my_base
"Might be a good time to start a fake commodity / commodity look-alike business."
Somebody has its called Bitcoin.
https://coinreport.net/goldman-sachs-bitcoin-a-commodity/
You're way late there, man!
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-09-24/get-your-fake-tungsten-filled-gold-coins-here
The Fed has been swapping gold for paper for decades. But it is too big to jail.
It is written into the FEDs charter that they will sell gold to defend the currency
I wonder if Germany is getting nervous about the real status of their gold held in NYC. I know I would be if I were them.
and Austria about their's in London - I'm sure its all there - no need to be concerned
I don't understand why they wouldn't just slowly sell off the gold and buy physical in their own countries at the same time.
Prease peopre, this is no raffing matter.
Long Tungsten.
Have to wonder what bank in America was involved in this one?
Bank of Langley
JPM is trying to set up shop right now...
What? Who wants that barbaric metal? it's worthless.
Gold is pretty much worthless metal itself, only an illusion that it is somehow valueable is giving it worth.
And paper with ink on it is much much more valuable ?
So true ....except to the guys that stole it!
That holds true for most things on the planet including the dollar.
You need gold to make a fission based nuke.
It surrounds the "pit" and keeps it from oxidizing insuring a successful "blast".
That's not even true. It takes 100 tons of earthmoving to get one ounce of gold, so each gold oz represents the value of that much energy invested.
If you have any of this worthless illusion lying around, can I have it?
So, you bought at the top and now feel like feeding us all a shit sandwhich?
Well if you think it is so worthless I have some prime real estate in South Chicago you might be interested in, I will do trade in with guns and or gold/silver
Its only debt.
This would have been a better story if The Bernank had been the buyer...
FOOLS_GOLD_FUBAR.
That 10 oz bar even looks fake to anyone who has ever seen a real pamp bar.
...and I should know!
_Janet Yellen
Dang it ......and no choclate inside neither?
"I'm shocked! I tell you. Shocked! that this happened." I'm sure glad this can't happen here in the US.....What's that you say Lassie? The head of the Treasury Dept was in an auto accident and the police found a trunk full of gold plated US treasury bars labeled "ship to China"?
Chek Lap Kok Bitchezzzz!
is that pronounced cock or kook?
Shudda gone for the safety of 2% 30Y US Treasury Bonds!
First, ahahahahahahahahahahahaha, go jump off a pagoda.
Secondi, 43 years old and has $250,000,000 in cash lying around, really how did you accomplish that importing iron ore?
Nothing funnier than when an insider or crook gets robbed by some other crook even better its some zipperhead.
I wonder what the odds spread is ... Stolen inside China by criminals, or counterfiet when purchased in Ghana?
Regardless, this is what happens when you tollerate counterfiet operations inside your country.
Great observation.
Occam's razor says inside China.
Ghana has actual gold mines and a handful of unsophisticated thieves for the most part, and the real stuff was observed being loaded [or so it is said.] The only point of failure in Ghana was the loading.
China has likely hundreds of thousands of sophisticated criminals and a culture of corruption. And it's entirely possible the people watching the transaction were in on the scam. And many points in the chain of transaction for a swap to occur.
>>>entirely possible the people watching the transaction were in on the scam.
The only real question is who takes the fall. Everything about this "deal gone bad" was likely planned out in detail, well in advance.
Hmmmm....sounds like another Homeland Security inside job to me!
CIA / NSA at work.
Nah, "Oceans Eleven", Ghana style.
Next thing you'll be telling me is my $5m Nigerian Certified Check that I paid only US$10k ain't no good! Ya right!
China you fucked up! You trusted us!
Shoulda bought most-shorted stocks you idiots.
Ghana? Seriously, what was he thinking?
If he was parking his gold in a Chinese ware/rehypothecation-house... then he has some mental/intellect issues that would probably preclude an informed decision as to whether one should officially export (at a higher cost) or smuggle their gold out of the Gold Coast.
Surely Ghana is better than the other G for Goldman Sachs
Ghana has gold, Goldmand has paper gold lol. He switch happened in China or even in Ghana since there are Chinese middle men on the ground there.
How Goldman Sachs Screwed Ghana
Goldman (under Hank Paulson) went to Ghana to get J Aron (under current corrupt chief operating asshat Gary Cohn) its own supply of physical gold... while trading against its own clients and bringing down the 3rd largest gold company in the world.
The B2B equivalent of a Nigerian email scam is a Bonny light oil scam, the gold business isn't any less opaque or overrun by criminals, sort of like Wall Street and PPPs (either variety). Funny thing is Bonny light, Gold, and PPP deals happen all the time, but none of them are anything like the internet myth version in real life.
Hope he didn't use his Bitcoins to pay for that gold!!!!
Do any of you test your PMs?
Fo Shizzle, I used a 5 decimal balance - weigh the gold, then suspend the gold by a thin thread in a tared beaker of distilled water (large enough to submerge the item while not touching the sides or bottom of beaker). Now you have the mass and the volume since the water you displaced in the beaker will give you the water equivalent weight of the item, 1 liter of water = 1kg, 1 cubic centimeter = 1 gram. Divide the mass by the volume and you get the density - now check this against the periodic table of elements.
Why can't it touch the sides or bottom? What would be the problem if you just dropped it in?
If you just drop it in you are getting the weight of the coin which you have already obtained, you need the volume. When the coin is completely submerged on a zeroed scales the new reading will be the volume.
Once its in the water and covered even if by a string its not going to displace less water than if its just allowed to go to the bottom lol
I've got hold of some nitric acid (nasty stuff) but I'm yet to test my bars.
My gold coins seem to be ok (but I didn't drill them only submerged in acid).
I use a UTG on everything I get.
Heyyy.....I just sold my $50m Yacht to a guy from Ghana? What a coincidence!
I'll give him $127.63 for that fake gold!
No wonder the Federal Reserve ordered all that tungsten.
Germany and others want to see your gold sitting in the Federal Reserve? The jokes on you.
those gold bars have something in common with the big eared jihadist in chief.
-shiny on the outside
-shitty in the inside
Pretty nice looking bars until you peel back the skin and presto-chango, it's a turd.
Looks like another JP Morgan default swap to me!
I was hoping those fake bars were filled with Belgian chocolate. ;-)
Same shit happened to me, friggin gold coins had chocolate inside.
So what? Who doesn't like chocolate?
Ya can't eat chocolate..... Um never mind
I like that excuse better that a frigginboating accident story.
I am so sick of those, I am tempted to send them to the IRS, but I bet the NSA has already beat me...
I'm not an expert on gold bars, but there are several suspicious things about this bar on even a cursory viewing.
1.) Every PAMP bar I have ever seen uses a period rather than a comma to designate the decimal point. It should read 999.9 NOT 999,9
2.) PAMP uses a letter plus 6 numbers as a serial ID, not 6 numbers alone. See: http://www.pamp.com/mintedingots/AU00RI024S101
3.) The first rule of buying gold. No assay certificate = NO SALE.
4.) The gold plate has separated from the tungsten in the "U" area of Suisse and the "88" of the serial number.
5.) There are non destructive methods of testing for tungsten. Usually by measuring sound wave speed through the metal. Expensive but then so is losing $270 million.
6.) Direct cash purchase from East African country. WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG? An established dealer would have cost only a little more.
Fools and their money soon follow divergent paths.
Ultrasound thickness gauges are expensive. And may not work well with coins of 1 oz or smaller.
I wonder (in the case of coins) if a "ping test" (drop a coin from 5 mm onto your granite countertop) would detect a fake vs. a real Gold Eagle. If anyone ever gets a fake coin, please let us know.
Excellent post! + $55,000
The Fisch is a very good coin verification program for us average Steves:
see
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4Xsux7ahzE
A competing product (a balance like the Fisch) just took away their guarantee that it would detect fakes made of tungsten, see link previous page.
Ultrasonic thickness gauges can be purchased for <$150
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ULTRASONIC-THICKNESS-METER-Gauge-Velocity...
Anyone who purchases gold bars without one is ignorant, or a fool. edit. (IMHO)
But, do the cheapies work well for small gold coins of slightly differing thickness (WITHIN the coin itself, look closely). Most UTGs need more than 1 mm to work right. YES, tungsten transmits sound much faster than Au, but if the UTG is cheap and from China, would you be confident it works well? Just asking.
I buy Eagles from LCS`s that have been around awhile, weigh each, and stack (fit) them into the US Mint plastic tubes. So weight is OK, dimensions OK (20 fit snugly into a tube), but that would NOT catch a good tungsten fake.
Apparently, for now, fake BULLION Au coins are rare. US $5.00 gold pieces and larger (esp. rare numismatic ones) is a whole `nother story...
If you bought a cheapy it would be easy to test on a few electroplated items. (old car bumpers?)
I've tested an ohm meter type 'gold tester' that my LCS/gold buyer guy uses daily, he swears by it for triple digit accuracy vs actual smelter returns.
Ghana is a West African country (not East African) and has been exporting gold for many decades. It's one of their main export markets. But I concur with everything else in your post. For HK$270MM I feel like the buyer must have been in on it... Or this is a cover story much like the fake false flag terror meme's for the coming capital control lockdown during which only the 0.1% will be able to transfer more than $10,00 across a national border.
You might want to look at your math, or the assumptions underlying it. There is only refinery one in Ghana that produces to (even) 4 nines, and they have a tiny market share. Far more common for gold sourced from a producer would be a dore bar, and an upfront payment based on 90% purity would actually be a rather expensive (as opposed to a discount) for a payment prior to proper refining and any final settlement.
Your comment makes absolutely no sense, contextually. Please elaborate. I didn't do any math... and you sound like you are responding to a different post? Shill gone wayward?
"For HK$270MM I feel like the buyer must have been in on it" (You were replying to a post where there is a direct implication that both PAMP bars and cash were involved in a sizable gold export sale from Ghana.)
The price isn't abnormal for the product that would have actually been used in the transaction.
The "buyer" also appears to have been an agent on behalf of other buyers in Asia, and since these deals aren't generally done in cash, there are a whole bunch of people from porters to bureaucrats to bankers who would have had the requisite knowledge (on at least two continents ) to manipulate the situation for their own benefit, regardless-- swapping bars instead of simply absconding with them creates plausible deniability and misdirection for a whole slew of potential suspects.
If the ultimate buyer(s) of the gold were the Hong Kong version of Forrest Gump, then I could easily see the middleman try to pass blame and pocket the profit, but Au and Pb often go hand in hand, and I don't too many middlemen who would take a chance pleading "I wuz robbed" to a deep pocketed (and probably well armed and connected) consumer of barbarous relics.
An initial inquiry showed Zhao purchased 998kg of gold bars from a company in Ghana in mid-April, police said.A
All you need to know. A few more African patsy fake gold shipments and the woar drums start beating to go in and take control of their resources next under the guise of you stole our shit and we are coming to take it back three card monti smokescreen trick to keep the ponzi going just a little longer.
"a company in Ghana"
I wonder if that email from the Ghanian prince offering to give me a share of his gold (for helping him secure shipment) is on the up-and-up? I hope so, I just invested our entire retirement fund on shipping costs.
about a year and a half ago I read that the president of ghana died suddenly,shortly after requesting the return of ghana's gold from london vaults.
>>>I hope so, I just invested our entire retirement fund on shipping costs.
Meanwhile, in real life, a number of poor schmucks actually wired their life savings to Hannes Tulving.
Surely, Hannes is NOT to big to jail, though personally I'd prefer that he be blinded and have his tongue cut out.
The System is full od Gold that is not Gold and worthless money.
So perhaps that's all you get if you pay with HK$270 million of fiat.
Or perhaps the metal shipped may be equivalent to HK$270 million.
Who can actually really tell?
His first sign that something was wrong was that there were no guards protecting the shipment!
Very expensive fridge magnets!
There is always the possibility that Zhao arranged the switch himself and has arranged for the gold to be elsewhere, especially if he paid with credit. Who the hell would buy PAMP through Africa?
Yeah exactly, something don't add up here unless this guy was a total idiot. In places like that when you do business of this size you have your own people on the ground there checking the product and watching it like a hawk right up to the point it is put in the shipping container when you are talking these types of numbers in the hundreds of millions.
Those pictures are from the Jewry district in NYC, they're not of the bars involved in this incident in HK/China.
The gold bars one buys in Ghana aren't produced at a PAMP refinery, and Ghana doesn't import measurable gold for resale since gold is produced domestically (as well smuggled in from all over West Africa).
Let the games begin!
I'll give him my $100 Trillion Zimbabwe Note for that gold!
And Germany still can't get their fake gold back ....why?
Kind of reminds me of those chocolate coins wrppaed in gold foil -- they would be worth a couple of dollars if they contained good Suisse chocolate... The real mystery of course, is how did this many Suisse melt gold bars reach Ghana in the first place -- leading to the possibility that the Suisse cannot find enough gold to meet demand and are pumping out these fake bars. And as others have pointed out - why would you go to Ghana to buy gold?? I'm sure the 'lure' was that the price was 'attractive' - but that is reason enough to be suspicious. And if they were 'real' in Ghana - then this just hints that the metal warehousing in China is not just bad for copper and alumninm.
"gold bars he bought in Ghana had been swapped for non-precious metal bars. "
I confess. It was me, mahn.
Now I can afford to just hang out at ZH all day.
Hornswaggled again, dang it!
They could have at least put chocolate under the wrapping...
I think the clue was the word 'Ghana'.
Chinese warehouses are empty. The banks are leveraged to the moon with materials that don't exist, not even close. Yet we are supposed to believe the Chinese are accumulating gold at record speed.
No they don't! The gold supply is tightly controlled by the tribe and for good reason. Their religious book make mention of gold and it records a group of Jewish exiles from Egypt to build a statue from gold in the desert. Think about the logistics to make this happen. Whether true or not is irrelevant.
Gold has an important place in the Jewish history and Jews are controlling operations in NY, London, Zurich and Frankfurt where gold is stored. This gold ownership and control dates back centuries. The golden calf may be a myth but the claim and the connection to gold is not.
Jewish gold owners will NEVER share their gold with Chinese corrupt government officials or other noveau riche Chinese.
Chinese may think they can get gold directly from Africa but that trade is tight. The Jews know about every large trade and they simply won't let it happen. #MH370 (conspirational or not)
Goym or gweilo, the choice is yours.
I took the gold foil from my chocolate and build a golden chocolate statue in the dessert - so I know or can be done.
We're all stacking for the gods, biggest stack wins a free ride to heaven.
That is what lulu amelu is for,
Digging and Stacking
Stack On
Ghana? He gets what he deserves for lacking critical thinking skills. Holy shit. Did he wire $30,000 to the prince of Zamunda too?
There's a reason you only got 6 upvotes. Let me educate you Larry Fucking Sally. One of Ghana's main exports is GOLD. They export gold ALL THE TIME. They have heavily vetted and tested protocols for exporting GOLD. Ghana is a former British colony and is very Victorian in culture to this day, amongst the educated and government class. This swtich happened in China. This amount of gold is arranged for purchase with a manufacturer/miner of gold, not with a local middle man. Get ahold of yourself Larry, you're too easy a target. Shut the fuck up when grown folks are talking will ya?
Culture is subjective here.
If this is the case, why are Kruggerands so popular vs gold from Ghana? Are you saying we should implicitily trust all gold from Ghana because its, as you so Frasier Craine-esqely said "former British colony and is very Victorian in culture to this day, amongst the educated and government class."
So is "Murica.
Put down the history books and put your moeny where your mouth is. Go ahead and buy some Ghana gold. Really.
That's why 7-11 prints matches with "easy come, easy go".
Edit: The serial number ended in 8. That's enough proof it's a good bar.
He should have used the Fed's lay-away plan, and waited 7 years for delivery...
gold pump right on cue......
6 weeks of party then bang
fish killed barrel
you fucking scammers are pathetic
to all you newbies around here ( if there are any left after being raped by these gold pumpers last time)
The gold stories here are designed to get you into gold physical so they can unload their hoard of worthless metal no one wants.
Don't fall for this shit...
They fuckin raped the average Joe 2 years ago pumping 10,000 dollar gold at 1900 as we all sold and told them to do the same.
But alas...... no
the pumpers got them to hold... the rest of the gold/silver story is tragic for those folks
Don't be a moron. Simply wait and these pricks will fold as they panic to 900.
I advised people to buy only one or two coins at 1900 dollars. I offer the same advice at any price.