Chinese Gold
January 20, 2011 1 Comment
Here is a piece of news I came across.Since so many Indians consider shopping in HK these days I think the following clipping is a must read.
Fake gold scam hammers Hong Kong jewellers
With the gold price sitting at record highs, Hong Kong jewellers and pawn shops have been hammered by one of the most sophisticated scams in which hundreds of ounces of fake gold were traded in the market.
The gold-mad city has woken up to a massive scam as investigators discovered that at least 200 ounces of fake bullion, worth about $250,000 have been traded at the island`s fabled jewellery souks so far this year, Financial Times reported.
“It’s a very good fake”, said Haywood Cheung, president of the Chinese Gold and Silver Exchange Society, Hong Kong’s hundred year old gold exchange, highlighting how criminals are developing new techniques to commit an age-old fraud.
Though officially only 200 ounces of fake gold was recorded as traded, Cheung estimated that 10 times that amount might have infiltrated the retail market. Describing the swindle as ” one of the most sophisticated scams to hit Hong Kong gold market in decades”, the Financial Times said it has come when the price of gold has soared to record highs of $1,400 an ounce.
In one case, executives discovered a pure gold coating that masked a complex alloy with similar properties to gold. The fake gold included a significant amount of bullion — about 51 per cent of the total — alloyed with seven other metals: osmium, iridium, ruthenium, copper, nickel, iron, and rhodium. Read more of this post
When inflation is high and interest rates on term deposits and bonds are low, or when fixed income instruments start offering equity like returns during liquidity crunches, company fixed deposits become tempting. Here are a couple of things to consider to rein in your greed.
wealthymatters 