When the news of tungsten "salted" gold bars in Hong Kong first surfaced,
many people

who I am acquainted with automatically assumed that these bars were
manufactured in

China - because China is generally viewed as "the knock-off capital of the
world".

Here's what I now understand really happened:

The amount of "salted tungsten" gold bars in question was allegedly between
5,600 and 5,700 - 400 oz - good delivery bars [roughly 60 metric tonnes].

This was apparently all highly orchestrated by an extremely well financed
criminal operation.

Within mere hours of this scam being identified - Chinese officials had many
of the perpetrators in custody.

And here's what the Chinese allegedly uncovered:

Roughly 15 years ago - during the Clinton Administration [think Robert
Rubin, Sir Alan Greenspan and Lawrence Summers] - between 1.3 and 1.5
million 400 oz tungsten blanks were allegedly manufactured by a very
high-end, sophisticated refiner in the USA [more than 16 Thousand metric
tonnes]. Subsequently, 640,000 of these tungsten blanks received their gold
plating and WERE shipped to Ft. Knox and remain there to this day. I know
folks who have copies of the original shipping docs with dates and exact
weights of "tungsten" bars shipped to Ft. Knox.

The balance of this 1.3 million - 1.5 million 400 oz tungsten cache was also
plated and then allegedly "sold" into the international market.

Apparently, the global market is literally "stuffed full of 400 oz salted
bars".

Makes one wonder if the Indians were smart enough to assay their 200 tonne
haul from the IMF?

http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/ed...2009/1112.html

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=0cb_1...56&to_friend=1

Best Regards

Tom.

Puts a new spin on the old Gold Finger, doesn't it!

On the other hand, all the references Google turned up on this quoted
the exact same page you did...

Well, a gold foil hat is certainly prettier than a tin foil hat!

"cavelamb" wrote in message
...
On the other hand, all the references Google turned up on this quoted
the exact same page you did...

Well, a gold foil hat is certainly prettier than a tin foil hat!

I didnt check the authors sources but thought it a fun read
since it has metalworking content some of the people here
might enjoy it even if its total BS. Maybe the story is an attempt
to cause panic in the gold markets by some nutter ?

Best Regards
Tom.

Either up or down! - prices of gold is very high.

I tend to believe it is a false story - but nowadays anything goes...
Greed is rampant.

Martin

azotic wrote:
"cavelamb" wrote in message
...
On the other hand, all the references Google turned up on this quoted
the exact same page you did...

Well, a gold foil hat is certainly prettier than a tin foil hat!

I didnt check the authors sources but thought it a fun read
since it has metalworking content some of the people here
might enjoy it even if its total BS. Maybe the story is an attempt
to cause panic in the gold markets by some nutter ?

Best Regards
Tom.

"Martin H. Eastburn" wrote in message
...
Either up or down! - prices of gold is very high.

I tend to believe it is a false story - but nowadays anything goes...
Greed is rampant.

Martin


One would think that gold bars are carefully checked with nondestructive
methodes to determine if they are in fact what they claim to be. I have to
say
that the author is a gold foil hat candidate and the story is total BS.

Best Regards
Tom.

"Martin H. Eastburn" wrote in message
...
Either up or down! - prices of gold is very high.

I tend to believe it is a false story - but nowadays anything goes...
Greed is rampant.

Martin


To me, the tipoff that the story is BS is that Titanium is a whole lot
lighter than Gold -- a 400 oz bar of Au-plated Ti would be more than double
the size of an Au bar of the same weight (IIRC).

In order for the story to be considered there could be no physical handling
of a bar by a human that was experienced in handling the stuff and THAT I
find to be most unlikely.


azotic wrote:
"cavelamb" wrote in message
...
On the other hand, all the references Google turned up on this quoted
the exact same page you did...

Well, a gold foil hat is certainly prettier than a tin foil hat!

I didnt check the authors sources but thought it a fun read
since it has metalworking content some of the people here
might enjoy it even if its total BS. Maybe the story is an attempt
to cause panic in the gold markets by some nutter ?

Best Regards
Tom.

F. George McDuffee writes:

Tungsten (sg 1.96) is indeed slightly heavier than gold (sg 1.93) ...

You mean "denser", not "heavier".

One precious property of gold is that it is denser than anything cheaper.
At least to the ancients, before tungsten. It is quite feasible to cast
counterfeit gold bars with a core of tungsten alloy powder adulteration
that will pass any density test.