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posted by martyb on Thursday August 29 2019, @02:00PM   Printer-friendly
from the need-more-blockchain dept.

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.

[...] "The latest fake bars ... are highly professionally done," said Michael Mesaric, the chief executive of refinery Valcambi. He said maybe a couple of thousand have been found, but the likelihood is that there are "way, way, way more still in circulation. And it still exists, and it still works."

Fake gold bars - blocks of cheaper metal plated with gold - are relatively common in the gold industry and often easy to detect.

The counterfeits in these cases are subtler: The gold is real, and very high purity, with only the markings faked. Fake-branded bars are a relatively new way to flout global measures to block conflict minerals and prevent money-laundering. Such forgeries pose a problem for international refiners, financiers and regulators as they attempt to purge the world of illicit trade in bullion.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-gold-swiss-fakes-exclusive/exclusive-fake-branded-bars-slip-dirty-gold-into-world-markets-idUSKCN1VI0DD


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Friday August 30 2019, @12:31AM (2 children)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Friday August 30 2019, @12:31AM (#887581) Journal

    Uhh... what? Did we read the same article? I didn't see anything there about submitting to authorities to convert gold into currency.

    Obviously, we did NOT read the same article. The article that I read states pretty clearly that only certain authorities may stamp gold bars with intricate markings. Said markings make those bars legal and acceptable to use in trade, while the lack of said markings makes the same gold bars suspect. Ultimately, if I want to engage in trade in gold, then I must submit to authority.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 30 2019, @01:44AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 30 2019, @01:44AM (#887597)

    So you have a problem with a group of people joining together to not buy tasteless tomatoes?

  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday August 30 2019, @04:45AM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday August 30 2019, @04:45AM (#887650) Journal

    The article that I read states pretty clearly that only certain authorities may stamp gold bars with intricate markings.

    Sorry, looks like fraud and trademark violations to me. You can do the same to create fake Coca Cola products. The counterfeiters in question could have stamped those gold bars with their own intricate markings and thus become yet another authority of this sort.

    Ultimately, if I want to engage in trade in gold, then I must submit to authority.

    Any sort of trade really. Trading in counterfeit Gucci bags or Rolex watches is going to run afoul of the law too.