The Australian one > claims the historic Perth Mint sold $9 billion worth of fake gold bars to China and then covered it up. This might be the scandal of the century.
> has uncovered documents that outline the decision by the Western Australian government-owned mint to start “turbocharging” its gold in 2018 and how it withheld evidence from its biggest customer to protect its reputation.
The report estimated that almost 100 tonnes of gold sent to the Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE) potentially failed to meet Shanghai’s strict purity standards for silver content.
A Perth Mint insider, who asked not to be named because he might face up to five years in prison if revealed, said:
“I don’t know if I’ve ever seen such a scandal”.
The mint began doping gold in 2018 as a cost-saving measure, expecting to save up to $620,000 a year.
“The gold bars produced and sold by the Perth Mint always contained at least 99.99 percent gold according to specifications. It was never a matter of debate” – stated the mint in its statement issued following the news became public.
“These purity standards are in line with industry standards and those set by the international market authority, the London Bullion Market Association.”
“In September 2021, the Perth Mint became aware that some of its 1kg bars did not meet Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE) non-gold standards. SGE specifications require that the non-gold component – ie 0.01 percent or 100 ppm of the bar – contain no more than 50 ppm of silver”.
However, according to ABC’s report, mint employees raised concerns that the silver and copper content may have exceeded the values allowed by the SGE months following the modification of the gold bars began.
Despite this, the organization took the matter lightly and still did not use pure gold for the bars.
The findings of an internal investigation leaked to the ABC and made public on Monday evening show how much danger the mint would be exposed to if SGE were to make its concerns public and demand a recall.
“If SGE – a prominent stock exchange client of Gold Corporation – had disclosed that it had problems with Gold Corporation bullion … the impact of negative public statements on the business might be very significant” – stated the internal investigation.
“It’s possible that gold buyers in the market will be asking, ‘Can we trust anything that comes from the Perth Mint?’ Including coins, bars, anything?” said the insider.
After the news spread like wildfire on social media, several people on Twitter responded to the scandal by saying: “Bitcoin will solve that.”
