Topic: Fake-branded bars slip dirty gold into world markets (Read 644 times)

True, but whether taking something from a country that lost the war is theft is a matter of opinion. Japan was being occupied after the war and the occupants did not think of themselves this way. In their minds they were peacekeepers. How much money, gold, oil was taken from Iraq? At the same time those little bank thefts, account hacks and other white collar crimes are always painted like the worst theft that needs to be weeded out as it destabilizes the system. The world is strange indeed.

I guess that they now see that there is no system that is free of being used for fraudulent acts, security experts' would have given their strength by not even allowing the bar to enter into world market but even with the securities that they out in place, it still does happen even with gold market.

I think it is even easier that way because gold too does not have limited supply like fiat also, and it could get into the hands of too many people at a particular time, but cryptocurrency have limited supply and it would t always have the supply till future, which means it can be controlled in future, but gold cannot be controlled and that is why its supply cannot even be accounted for, why bitcoin supply can really be accounted for. Well, the bar sleeping into the market is the responsibility of the government anyway.

Official stamps might make you feel warm and cozy inside, but this is a longstanding practice. For example, the US government is long known to have melted down personal effects from the German occupation into official US treasury gold bars. This is basically how all conflict gold stolen in wars is treated. Money is treated as money, in other words.

Since gold is a natural resource there are mines which are done illegally and to be considered as a bullion you need to have certain standards and a few authorized mints will produce those and we are living in a world where everything is duplicated and this is not a shocking news altogether.

Criminals will find a way to do illegal activities to launder money and blockchain can be used to put an end to those or at least reduce these illegal practices and for that we need more research and studies to come up with a near perfect solution. Logos and documents can be duplicated but you cannot enter a duplicate entry into a blockchain .

You can never know what source, or rather area of business the dirty money comes from. They could come from theft. Would you like to buy cheap gold of high purity knowing that it was stolen and then melted to hide its origin? The problem with selling will also be there because if they are found to be fake you will need to pay someone to check if there isn't a core made of another metal and so on.

I am still OK with this, as the only ones who are getting harmed are the major corporations and banks who charge exorbitant fees for their branded bullion bars and coins. The buyer is getting gold bars of a very high purity, supposedly at cheaper rates. He may face some issues while converting the bullion bars to cash, but it is still going to be profitable for him. Another positive is that it may help to remove the monopoly in the global gold market currently being held by major miners and refiners from South Africa, Russia.etc and make the playing field a bit more equal. The buyers will be having more options to choose from and increased supply means that in general the prices will come down.

The so-called fake gold is still real gold, only a fake brand, because if the gold is really fake, then something that is impossible can be found in JPMorgan Chase & Co branskas and it is ironic that JPMorgan Chase & Co. can be deceived like this.

From this news I can conclude that everything that can be used as a place for money laundering, so far we have heard that the blockchain is an alternative to money laundering, but it turns out that even certified gold can be done by falsifying documents or logos / brands.

I meant in the way that people kept accusing Bitcoin as easy to counterfeit or launder. We've always made the argument that the same can be said for fiat, this one shows that even gold experts can be fooled.

With the fingerprinting, I wonder if pawnshops are equipped to detect doped gold. If I bought cheap gold bars and found out it's not "real" simply because it's lacking some seals, I'd be worried how I'll dispose it to get my money back. If they are doped but can pass through pawnshops undetected I might try to have them crafted into jewelry.

I think there is a big difference between having faking a "brand" of gold and actually faking a gold bar. I mean if you fake a gold bar it would be quite easy to understand if its real or not, it is literally gold, if it is gold than it is, if not then it is not. Its not like paper money, it is not like fiat paper money where you can print more money and if its good quality then people wouldn't understand it.

There are a lot of people who print fake money and get away with it, this is not like that, gold is literally a material and you can check to see if it is actually gold. However the news is faking the brand of the gold which actually does put a value on it, I mean same with diamonds, normally they are worthless but with a brand they worth a lot, gold at least worth a lot without the brand as well.

wow, this is really a big deal. When the demand is greater than the supply, there will be traders who turn a piece of metal into real gold in a sophisticated way. sometimes those who import gold to sell to customers have encountered this situation.
If this news is widely circulated, I think gold prices will fall sharply.

Is that really that different though? If mixing is good enough, the coins are as tainted as any other coin on the blockchain. And gold might not be perfect either, if someone really wanted, they could craft traceable gold bars by adding some isotopes or chemical markers. Or just using existing techniques - see here.


I don't think that it's either good or bad for Bitcoin, in grand scheme of things it's irrelevant to Bitcoin.

This story actually showcases one way that gold is superior. Stolen, conflict, or otherwise tainted gold can be melted down and re-stamped. This is much harder to trace than a public blockchain like Bitcoin where every transaction is permanently stored.

With Bitcoin, the best you can do is mix your coin taint with others. With gold, taint can be completely erased.

And I guessed this is also the reason why Gold has started to climb back up several months already. No wonder that this happened as it has obviously affected the demand for gold somehow making it available to all the buyers who are interested. The thing is how can they do such action of a trademarket violation when the product itself is no different than being a real gold itself, it's just being misrepresented by the use of their own logo/branding without their permission? If I were a buyer and I am not sure if the gold bare I am buying is real then it is safe to back off rather than see it being confiscated in the future. The more pressing issue here is the gold bars being used to launder money itself and I'm surprised the JP Morgan was not implicated of any criminal charges of possessing some to their assets.

Meh, wouldn't mind it much though this is good news for bitcoins. At least the bars are still true gold. I guess such bars would be a pain to dispose if found out to be "fake" but maybe there can be other ways to use those.

I don't know the laws in the US but are people allowed to have their gold melted down?

I knew people were trying all the best to mix some other metals and include less gold in bars in order to sell 450gm gold in price of 500mg (for example) but what I see now is unbelievable, they are just faking brand but with very high purity and quality gold, that's insane.
So gold is still pretty great thing for money laundering because people can fake it.
But can people fake bitcoin? No, who not anyone talks about it from governments? Shit politics.

These bars are real gold, they are just stamped with fake refinery stamps.

Hell the regular investments are so crooked that most of the time stock brokers have insider info on stuff they invest whereas we are watching from outside like something brand new happened.

Most people have even spies on other companies so they would know whats going on and they that person a percentage of the money they make from the information they gave. Hence there is really no clean guys in regular investment neither, yes there are many scammers and money launderers in crypto that is true, however its same as the drug dealer problem, they say bitcoin makes drug dealers work easier online but before 2008 there was still a lot of drug dealers right? They didn't start working after 2008, it was always a thing. Same goes for financially bad people.

I know this bank and have held shares in them, its an ancient bank and at times very profitable but not because its criminal but due to involvement with developing nations across the commonwealth and Asia which can be a very profitable position of arbitrage.    It helps illustrate why central authorities dislike or fear Bitcoin because it is not centralised, it cannot be controlled or easily rebuked as happened to Standard Chartered.    
   Stan must clear dollars in order to do business and taking part in that market requires the pass of various regulators and exchanges based in the USA, this means even as a global bank largely based outside the west they still are under the remit of the laws and sanctions of a country(s) in the west.   The UN is often not so powerful as it lacks the depth of power in this way so its left to supporting nations such as USA or similar to enable the actions taken behind the headlines that sanctions bring.  
   If BTC has no central authority, no reigns to control its usage it can easily be seen as a problem by some.   Its a threat to politics and the control they want over various countries, it doesn't have to be doing anything especially bad just the fact it exists and its large enough to move hefty amounts of cash through is some kind of latent threat it seems.
  Gold is at least heavy and subject to physical confiscation and control, BTC is instant and undefinable in regulation terms almost.

I am not entirely sure about this. From what I have heard, the bullion bars from the Swiss refineries come with certificates and these certificates are not very easy to counterfeit. Also, the bars will be having a unique serial number and most of the retailers keep a detailed log of the serial numbers and the shipment details (in case the owners are not anonymous).

That said, it is true that a lot of unaccounted money is being moved in the form of gold. It has become the primary route to circumvent the sanctions for North Korea (along with crypto-currency). Gold from North Korean mines are being sold in the markets of Northeast China, although it is against the UN sanctions and embargoes. Also, gold illegally mined from national parks and reserves from the Amazon rainforest also ends up as unaccounted gold.

At least bitcoin isn't easy to counterfeit

Everyone who buys gold should have a simple test kit and if they are purchasing large bars only buy them from a reputable dealer.  I do like bitcoin a lot but I still think gold is a solid hedge because it has held value for thousands of years.