14 replies to this topic

[Hum]

Ibrahim Fadl, a chemical engineer who owns a business near 47th Street and Fifth Avenue, bought four 10-ounce gold bars and decided to check them out further since he heard counterfeits were making the rounds, MyFoxNY.com reports.

Fadl, who paid $100,000 for the merchandise, drilled into several of the bars and found gray tungsten, which has nearly the same density as gold, making it difficult to detect. The same thing reportedly happened in Great Britain earlier this year, and finance blog ZeroHedge.com reported that in 2010 German refiner W.C. Heraeus claimed to have received a 500-gram bar from an unnamed bank that proved to be filled with tungsten.

The scheme purportedly involves a genuine gold bar that is purchased with serial numbers and authentic documents and is then hollowed out to be replaced with tungsten. The bar is then closed up to finalize the sophisticated operation, the website reports.

Manfra, Tordell & Brookes, the Swiss manufacturer of the gold bars, warned customers to only buy from reputable dealers. Raymond Nessim, the company’s CEO, said he has reported the incident to the FBI and the Secret Service.

Fadl, who could not be reached for comment, told NY1.com that the shell of the gold was sold to him by a customer at his gold refinery business and peeled off like foil on a candy bar.

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[Growled]

I never would have thought of that. Sneaky.

[moloko]

gold is huge right now. I have a few small bars. Cool to have. Must be very careful where you buy from.

[neufuse]

they always say if you are going to buy large amounts of gold, analyze it first before taking delivery... to a core sample, melt it down, do the acid test if that passes then you are good, can't just go by weight and the scratch test anymore

[Hum]

Isn't tungsten valuable too ?

[FMH]

Hum, on 21 September 2012 - 14:04, said:

Isn't tungsten valuable too ?

Not that expensive. If you buy a 100 grams of tungsten, it'll cost you around USD 250. While a 100 grams of god will cost USD 5220.

[+littleneutrino]

at least they are getting more sophisticated back in the old days they would just put gold around a rock

[Medfordite]

Tungsten is quite awesome as a jewelry piece. Have a ring myself made of that and has never needed to be polished or had any scratches appear on it.

Funny that this article was posted, because I was reading on Wikipedia the other day about Tungsten and how some counterfeit gold is out there filled with Tungsten. I do agree though - if you are going to buy gold or any precious medal for that matter, test a sample from what you are buying just to be sure. Or at least buy from a highly reputable company which has a proven track record of genuine product.

[*RedBull*]

Didn't know we could buy bars of god.

[Hum]

^ And they're pretty expensive, too.

[KCRic]

Medfordite, on 21 September 2012 - 14:39, said:

Tungsten is quite awesome as a jewelry piece. Have a ring myself made of that and has never needed to be polished or had any scratches appear on it.

You mean tungsten carbide? Regular tungsten is hard but it's only about 7.5 on the Mohs scale. Tungsten carbide ceramic is 9-9.5.

I do agree that it's awesome but takes some getting use to since it's so heavy. I only have to take a cloth or use my clothes to shine my carbide ring. It's pretty wild stuff. I've scratched a few things with it on accident - doesn't help that I have black diamonds on it either...

[roadwarrior]

Hum, on 20 September 2012 - 13:34, said:

Ibrahim Fadl, a chemical engineer who owns a business near 47th Street and Fifth Avenue, bought four 10-ounce gold bars and decided to check them out further since he heard counterfeits were making the rounds, MyFoxNY.com reports.
....

Fadl, who could not be reached for comment, told NY1.com that the shell of the gold was sold to him by a customer at his gold refinery business and peeled off like foil on a candy bar.

Wait, this guy owns a gold refinery and just blindly bought some gold from one of his customers without checking it out first? How stupid is he?

[Raa]

I heard about this earlier in the year... Gotta check what you buy!

[Farstrider]

roadwarrior, on 22 September 2012 - 12:35, said:

Wait, this guy owns a gold refinery and just blindly bought some gold from one of his customers without checking it out first? How stupid is he?

Well I guess that someone who can fork out $100 000-00 (from his own business) can't be the stupidest person on the planet. Perhaps he had bought from this person/people before and trusted them?

[roadwarrior]

Farstrider, on 22 September 2012 - 14:36, said:

Well I guess that someone who can fork out $100 000-00 (from his own business) can't be the stupidest person on the planet. Perhaps he had bought from this person/people before and trusted them?

Money doesn't equal brains.