All that glitters is not gold ...

By Hum
in Real World News

 Share

Recommended Posts

Grand Master

Hum

Posted
Posted

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.

more

Link to comment
https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1106833-all-that-glitters-is-not-gold/
Share on other sites
Grand Master

PNWDweller

Posted
Posted

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. :)

Contributor

KCRic

Posted
Posted

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...

Grand Master

Southern Patriot

Posted
Posted

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?

Grand Master

Farstrider

Posted
Posted

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?

Grand Master

Southern Patriot

Posted
Posted

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.

This topic is now closed to further replies.
 Share
Go to topic listing

  • Posts

    • The official Funny Pictures thread

      By Steven P. · Posted

    • Celebrating Windows XP's 25th anniversary this year

      By carols23 · Posted

      If I could, I would commemorate it the best way possible: Replacing old machines that are still running Windows XP with something more modern, stable and better.     Noone and nothing should be running Windows XP in 2026.
    • Google's new hand-wave reCAPTCHA can be bypassed with a stock photo

      By Ivan Jenic · Posted

      Google's new hand-wave reCAPTCHA can be bypassed with a stock photo by Ivan Jenic Image: Screenshot Google is testing a new reCAPTCHA method that asks you to wave at your camera to prove you're human. So, besides solving puzzles and reading distorted text, you can now use your computer’s camera to pass the verification test. When the hand gesture verification is triggered, your browser asks for camera access and prompts you to perform a simple gesture, like a wave or an open palm. Google says it records a short video of the movement and uses AI to extract 21 hand-knuckle coordinates to complete the verification process. The video is then immediately deleted, and Google swears it doesn't keep it. The process alone can be uncomfortable for people who wouldn’t want their biometric data, which hand scans technically qualify as, recorded. But it gets even more nuanced, as early testers discovered that the new hand-waving reCAPTCHA can be passed with a simple stock image. A user on X tested the new challenge using a stock image of a hand fed through OBS Virtual Camera, and it passed. I wanted to verify it, so I tried the same thing. It took me a few tries and a few stock images, but in the end, I was also able to pass the test. I simply had to readjust the stock image of a generic person waving inside OBS, and Google’s mechanism registered it as a legitimate hand gesture. Once again, it didn’t even have to be a video or an AI-generated hand animation. Given the simplicity of the process, the entire action can be automated in minutes. All it takes is a simple Python script to render the new reCAPTCHA method obsolete. And it doesn’t even have to be an AI bot, which is usually used for solving puzzles and other verification methods. The new reCAPTCHA method is still in its early phase, and Google will, hopefully, update its AI to at least reject still images. However, this incident, combined with users’ initial skepticism about Google’s practices regarding user data, likely won’t make too many people wave at the camera anytime soon.
    • Why it's almost impossible to produce a smartphone in the United States

      By monterxz · Posted

      🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 "to fund healthcare and tuition" 🤣🤣🤣🤣 Who do you think you are talking about, some COMMUNIST? We are better than them, doG bless Murica!!! p.s. I'm from a country where government does exactly that, i.e. not form US.
    • Microsoft Edge gets tons of security features, including AI model that can see your screen

      By ad47uk · Posted

      Apparently not. I know it is on Edge for business at the moment, but how long will it be before it become on the home version of Edge?

  • Recent Achievements

    • First Post
      carols23 earned a badge
      First Post
    • One Month Later
      Tom Willson earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • Apprentice
      Asgardi went up a rank
      Apprentice
    • One Month Later
      sunrisea2milk earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • Week One Done
      sunrisea2milk earned a badge
      Week One Done

  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      499
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      255
    3. 3
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      154
    4. 4
      Steven P.
      89
    5. 5
      macoman
      66
    Show More

  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!