Thread: Tungsten-Filled 10 Oz Gold Bar Found In The Middle Of Manhattan's Jewelry District

Tungsten-Filled 10 Oz Gold Bar Found In The Middle Of Manhattan's Jewelry District



Submitted by Tyler Durden on 09/18/2012 20:42 -0400

It is one thing for tungsten-filled gold bars to appear in the UK, or in Germany: after all out of sight, and across the Atlantic, certainly must mean out of mind, and out of the safe. However, when a 10 ounce 999.9 gold bar bearing the stamp of the reputable Swiss Produits Artistiques Métaux Précieux (PAMP, with owner MTP) and a serial number (serial #038892, likely rehypothecated in at least 10 gold ETFs across the world but that's a different story), mysteriously emerges in the heart of the world's jewerly district located on 47th street in Manhattan, things get real quick. Moments ago, Myfoxny reported that a 10-ounce gold bar costing nearly $18,000 turned out to be a counterfeit. The discovery was made by the dealer Ibrahim Fadl, who bought the PAMP bar in question from a merchant who has sold him real gold before. "But he heard counterfeit gold bars were going around, so he drilled into several of his gold bars worth $100,000 and saw gray tungsten -- not gold. The bar was filled with tungsten, which weighs nearly the same as gold but costs just over a dollar an ounce."

What makes so devious is a real gold bar is purchased with the serial numbers and papers, then it is hollowed out, the gold is sold, the tungsten is put in, then the bar is closed up. That is a sophisticated operation.

MTB, the Swiss manufacturer of the gold bars, said customers should only buy from a reputable merchant. The problem, he admits, is Ibrahim Fadl is a very reputable merchant.

Raymond Nessim, CEO Manfra, Tordell & Brookes, said he has reported the situation to the FBI and Secret Service.

The Secret Service, which deals with counterfeits, said it is investigating.

And cue panic on the realization that virtually any gold bar in the world, not just those in Europe and Australia, which have already had close encounters with Tungsten substitutes, but also New York may be hollowed out and have a real worth of a few dollars max. Which, sadly, is fitting considering our main story from last night was the realization that an unknown amount of Chinese iron ore had either never existed or had simply vaporized, and was no longer serving as the secured collateral to various liabilities circulating in the electronic ether. After all, only the most naive out there could conceive of gold being sacrosanct when every other asset class is being diluted to infinity by a regime that has long since run out of money.

As for gold-based transactions on West 47th street: look for that market to grind to a halt at least for as long as it takes for this scandal to be forgotten too.

The only open question remaining will be how much of the gold located 90 feet below Libert 33 is in the same Tungstenized format. For what it's worth: it is unlikely we will ever find out.

This is what glaring gold counterfeiting looks like.









And for the reading challenged:

Video at the page link:

New York News | NYC Breaking News

All that said, with false flags rampant these days, we would not be surprised if this is merely yet another attempt to discredit gold, this time physical, as an undilutable medium of warehousing wealth. So buyer beware: in a time when everyone is broke, triple check before exchanging one store of wealth for another.

Tungsten-Filled 10 Oz Gold Bar Found In The Middle Of Manhattan's Jewelry District | ZeroHedge

Related: http://www.alipac.us/f19/fake-gold-b...t-knox-175599/

GoldCore's Mark O'Byrne on the Fake Gold Scandal, Macro Gold, and the Risk On Trade!



Published on Oct 4, 2012 by CapitalAccount
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Welcome to Capital Account. Gold hit an 11 month high today, supposedly bolstered by signs that the ECB will keep borrowing costs low and the notion that the central bank stands ready to buy bonds in the secondary market. As long as central banks continue to print and maintain negative real interest rates, should investors consider owning gold? A recent PIMCO report stated the following:

"We believe investors should consider allocating gold and other precious metals to a diversified investment portfolio... Regarding inflation in particular, we feel that the Federal Reserve's decision to begin a third round of quantitative easing makes gold even more attractive."

Could this mean investing in gold will become mainstream? We speak to GoldCore founder Mark O'Byrne about the impact of PIMCO's report. We discuss both the supply side, as well as the demand side of the gold bull run. As far as supply is concerned, what are the fundamentals driving gold higher? And as far as demand is concerned, how important is the macro environment of risk-on, risk-off? Are people using gold to hedge, not against moderate inflation, but against the potential for dislocating deflation or runaway inflation and hyperinflation? Mark O'Byrne will give us his take. He is founder and executive director of GoldCore.

Also last month a gold dealer in Manhattan discovered a certified gold bar was in fact made up of more than 75 percent Tungsten. Does fake gold really represent a tail risk for buying physical gold or is this a one-off thing? We speak with Mark O'Byrne, Founder and Executive Director of the international bullion dealer GoldCore about the role of gold and the potential for fraud.

And although we tend to favor market solutions, are market forces actually doing a disservice to democracy? Are media outlets really just focusing on the horserace of presidential politics rather than the substance because the former is more profitable? Lauren and Demerti talk about the presidential debate coverage in today's "Loose Change."

On Doing God’s Work
By: Rob Kirby

“Gold Finger - A New Take On Operation Grand Slam With A Tungsten Twist”
Excerpt:

I’ve already reported on irregular physical gold settlements which occurred inLondon, England back in the first week of October, 2009. Specifically, these settlements involved the intermediation of at least one Central Bank [The Bank of England] to resolve allocated settlements on behalf of J.P. Morgan and Deutsche Bank – who DID NOT have the gold bullion that they had sold short and were contracted to deliver. At the same time I reported on two other unusual occurrences:

1] - irregularities in the publication of the gold ETF - GLD’s bar list from Sept. 25 – Oct.14 where the length of the bar list went from 1,381 pages to under 200 pages and then back up to 800 or so pages.

2] - reports of 400 oz. “good delivery” bricks of gold found gutted and filled with tungsten within the confines of LBMA approved vaults in Hong Kong.

Why Tungsten?

If anyone were contemplating creating “fake” gold bars, tungsten [at roughly $10 per pound] would be the metal of choice since it has the exact same density as gold making a fake bar salted with tungsten indistinguishable from a solid gold bar by simply weighing it.


Unfortunately, there are now more sordid details to report.

When the news of tungsten “salted” gold bars in Hong Kong first surfaced, many people who I am acquainted with automatically assumed that these bars were manufactured in China – because China is generally viewed as “the knock-off capital of the world”.

Here’s what I now understand really happened:

The amount of “salted tungsten” gold bars in question was allegedly between 5,600 and 5,700 – 400 oz – good delivery bars [roughly 60 metric tonnes].

This was apparently all highly orchestrated by an extremely well financed criminal operation.

Within mere hours of this scam being identified – Chinese officials had many of the perpetrators in custody.

And here’s what the Chinese allegedly uncovered:

Roughly 15 years ago – during the Clinton Administration [think Robert Rubin, Sir Alan Greenspan and Lawrence Summers] – between 1.3 and 1.5 million 400 oz tungsten blanks were allegedly manufactured by a very high-end, sophisticated refiner in the USA [more than 16 Thousand metric tonnes]. Subsequently, 640,000 of these tungsten blanks received their gold plating and WERE shipped to Ft. Knoxand remain there to this day. I know folks who have copies of the original shipping docs with dates and exact weights of “tungsten” bars shipped to Ft. Knox.



The balance of this 1.3 million – 1.5 million 400 oz tungsten cache was also plated and then allegedly “sold” into the international market.

Apparently, the global market is literally “stuffed full of 400 oz salted bars”.

Makes one wonder if the Indians were smart enough to assay their 200 tonne haul from the IMF?

Read the complete article at:

On Doing God’s Work

Related: http://www.alipac.us/f19/max-keiser-...ld-vid-265883/

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