As much as $50 million fiat-US dollars in gold bullion bar value has turned up with falsely struck gold bullion bar hallmarks.
Gold refining executives from Switzerland recently told Reuters that at least 1,000 gold kilo bars had been found misleadingly struck with gold hallmarks from which they did not originate.
As if recent JP Morgan precious metal manipulation news could not get worse for the too big to fail bank. The JP Morgan brand name just got dragged into another gold scandal.
Although this time JP Morgan and its clients are the alleged victim this time. And a JP Morgan spokesman quoted for the story was adamant their clients lost nothing (quite likely true, since the falsely stamped gold bars should still be .999 fine gold, not some tungsten inserted fake gold bars like those found in NYC a few years back).
Ironic that the following clip posted by Reuters on falsely struck gold kilobars begins with an advertisement from SPDR Gold Trust (GLD).
The world’s still the most popular gold ETF derivative. It offers its unsecured shareholders a less than 1/10 oz spot gold price diverging fund which charges these same unsecured creditors (i.e., GLD shareholders) around $150 million fiat US dollars a year to manage the now over $40 billion valued exchange-traded fund.
Fake-Branded Gold Kilo Bars
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Likely these fake hallmarked gold kilobars were made in China.
These gold kilo bars are likely all .999 fine gold bullion and weigh 32.15 troy ounces.
And they are but a small share of output from the gold bullion bar industry, which produces about 2 million to 2.5 million gold bullion bars every year (i.e., see for yourself how much a ton of gold is worth).
These 1,000 or more misleadingly hallmarked gold bars likely contain non-LBMA approved gold ore from mining sources in South America or Africa (e.g., illegal wildcat Amazon gold seen in the clip below).
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Illegal Gold Mining Operation in the Amazon circa 2016
Wildcat #Gold mine
— James Henry Anderson (@jameshenryand) December 17, 2016
in #Brasil's #Amazon ->https://t.co/zdKZp696tG
Some allege responsible mines not profitable w/ artificial $1134 oz price pic.twitter.com/Jn7e5TdPiC
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For illegally sourced gold to be making it into gold bullion bank hoards is also somewhat ironic too.
Especially given that west versus east (i.e., LBMA gold price trading hours vs eastern hours) alludes that perhaps western derivative-driven gold price discovery has been artificially suppressed in upside price action for some three-decades running.
If you have interest in buying genuine gold bullion bars from legitimate gold bullion mints and refiners, check out our current gold bullion inventories today.
Be sure to also pick up our free SD Bullion Guide before leaving, so you can stay up to date on best practices in not only buying gold but also when selling gold.
Thanks for visiting us here at SD Bullion.
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