Gold Bar Discovered Filled With Tungsten, How Widespread is Counterfeiting

Commodities / Gold and Silver 2012 Mar 26, 2012 - 03:47 AM GMT

Best Financial Markets Analysis Article Robert Wenzel writes: Australian bullion dealer ABC Bullion is reporting that one of its suppliers has provided them photographic evidence of a tungsten filled 1 kilo gold bar,. The bar passed a hand-held xrf scan which showed 99.98% pure AU. The tungsten was only discovered when the bar was physically cut in half.

After numerous reports of 400oz tungsten filled bars being discovered in Hong Kong, this is the first documented and verified report with photographic evidence that has been made public, states Silver Doctors. ABC Bullion is a major player in the gold bar business and thus this report should be taken seriously.

Here's the reports from ABC:

Attached are photographs of a legitimate Metalor 1000gm Au bar that has been drilled out and filled with Tungsten (W).

This bar was purchased by staff of a scrap dealer in xxxxx, UK yesterday. The bar appeared to be perfect other than the fact that it was 2gms underweight. It was checked by hand-held xrf and showed 99.98% Au. Being Tungsten, it would not be ferro-magnetic. The bar was supplied with the original certificate.

The owner of the business that purchased the bar only became suspicious when he realized the weight discrepancy and had the bar cropped. He estimates between 30-40% of the weight of the bar to be Tungsten.

This is very worrying and reinforces the lengths that people are willing to go to profit from the current high metal prices. Please be careful.

The two halves of the bar.

Note, ABC is not insinuating that this tungsten discovery is part of some grand scheme. They are noting that it is very profitable to try and get away with slipping tungsten in the core of gold bars. At the same time, though, there have been rumors for a long-time that Fort Knox gold may be salted. Here's Silver Doctor on a Rob Kirby 2009 report on the manufacture of tungsten blanks and Fort Knox:

Now that we have confirmed documentation that 1 kilo gold bars have been drilled out and filled with tungsten, look for a rapid scramble to verify the AU contents of 400oz bars which reportedly have also been tainted with tungsten (the market is 'stuffed full' of gold plated tungsten 400oz bars according to Rob Kirby).

For those unfamiliar with the original reports that 60 metric tonnes of 400oz 'good delivery' bars were gutted and filled with tungsten, and swapped with US Treasury gold at Fort Knox in a highly sophisticated plan, an excerpt of his 2009 piece is included below: 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. Knox and 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?

Bottom line: Ron Paul has a very good reason to want an audit of Fort Knox gold. Let's see if there is any validity to these rumors.

Economic Policy Journal.

http://www.lewrockwell.com

© 2012 Copyright Robert Wenzel / LewRockwell.com - All Rights Reserved
Disclaimer: The above is a matter of opinion provided for general information purposes only and is not intended as investment advice. Information and analysis above are derived from sources and utilising methods believed to be reliable, but we cannot accept responsibility for any losses you may incur as a result of this analysis. Individuals should consult with their personal financial advisors.

Comments

Bron Suchecki
27 Mar 12, 10:33

Gold tungsten cache

"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."

I find this very hard to believe. As I discuss here http://www.perthmintbullion.com/blog/blog/12-03-26/Fake_Bars_-_The_Facts.aspx there is a fair bit of turnover of 400oz bars in the professional markets and as a result those bars would over time find their way to other refiners, mints and jewellers to be melted and turned into small bars, coins and jewellery. A scam of this size would thus have been found out by now.

Regards,

Bron Suchecki

MANAGER, ANALYSIS AND STRATEGY

THE PERTH MINT

Paul_B
27 Mar 12, 17:37

Gold Bars and Tungsten

Actually it's a MASSIVE scandal that's being well covered up by powerful interests. The prevalence of these phony bars within the bullion system is very high indeed. Once inside the system, the bars are simply never re-assayed, leaving vast scope for fraud. It amounts to the biggest heist of all time if the truth be known (which one day soon now I believe it will be). I suspect this is why far-sighted Venezuela repatriated all its bullion bars from overseas depositories; being the first country to do so, and known troublemakers for the West, they are guaranteed to be sent only good bars. Those who leave demands for repatriation til last, for fear of 'offending' the US, typically, will be the biggest losers. Germany springs to mind here as a case in point.

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