Fake-Branded Gold Bars Slip Into World Markets
August 28th, 2019Via: Reuters:
A forgery crisis is quietly roiling the world’s gold industry.
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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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.
Possibly Related: How Drug Lords Make Billions Smuggling Gold to Miami
Depressingly interesting look at a fascinating piece of the liquidity and laundering pie. Wonder who else has their fingers in it.