Tungsten filled Gold bars

ABC Bullion received the following email from one of our refinery partners this week as a general warning to those in the bullion industry.

Note:

• ABC Bullion did not purchased this bar, the bar was bought by a dealer in the UK that has no connection to ABC Bullion, the email and photos were sent to us as a general warning.
• The bar is a "one off"  
• I xxxx'ed out the city's name to avoid any second guessing as to the name of the dealer.

19/03/2012:

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.