TYB
Anon thinks it's not just the necklace but the blouse as well.
In short, more than 4% of China’s official gold reserves may be fake. And this assumes that no other Chinese gold producers and jewelry makers are engaging in similar fraud (spoiler alert: they are.)
https://nationandstate.com/2020/06/29/83-tons-of-fake-gold-bars-gold-market-rocked-by-massive-china-counterfeiting-scandal/
Wow.
It was notable last bread anon. I'm just commenting.
The above story is shocking in exposing just how multi-faceted fraud is in China: capitalizing on pre-existing cronyism and connections with China’s powerful army, the founder of Kingold was allowed to basically do anything he wanted, no questions asked, including counterfeiting over 83 tons of gold bars to get billions in funds to participate in China’s housing bubble, only for a series of unexpected events to unwind the frauds one after another and expose the type of sordid scandal that is at the heart of most Chinese “enterprises” and business ventures.
As for the gold, yes – several billion in gold bars never existed and yet resulted in a cascade of subsequent cash flow events allowing tens of billions in funds to be released, “benefiting” not only founder Jia, but China’s broader economy. Which is, needless to say, terrifying: because whereas just after the financial crisis China was engaged in building ghost cities, everyone knew these were a symbol of demand that would never materialize, even if the cities themselves did exist. However, it now appears that a major part of China’s subsequent economic boom has been predicated on tens of billions in hard assets – such as gold – which simply do not exist.
As for what this means for the price of gold… well, Kingold is certainly not the only Chinese company engaging in such blatant fraud, and the consequences are clear: once Chinese creditors or insurance companies start testing the “collateral” they have received in exchange for tens of billions in loans and discover, to their “amazement”, that instead of gold they are proud owners of tungsten or copper, they have two choices: reveal the fraud, risking tremendous adverse consequences and/or prison time, or quietly buy up all the gold needed to literally fill the void from years of gold counterfeiting.
Something tells us option two will be far more palatable to China’s kleptoculture where one domino cold trigger a collapse of the entire financial system. What happens next: a panicked scramble to procure physical gold, one which even our friends at the BIS will be powerless to stop from sending the price of the precious metal to all time highs.
Department of Justice
Office of Public Affairs
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, June 29, 2020
Chinese National Guilty of Laundering Millions for Mexican Drug Cartels
A Chinese national pleaded guilty today to conspiracy to commit money laundering in connection with laundering more than $4 million in drug proceeds generated by large-scale cocaine trafficking in the United States.
Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division; U.S. Attorney G. Zachary Terwilliger for the Eastern District of Virginia; Special Agent in Charge Jesse R. Fong for the Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA) Washington Field Division; Jason Crosby, Chief of the Criminal Investigations Division of the U.S. Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service (DSS); and Special Agent in Charge Raymond Villanueva of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Washington, D.C., made the announcement after U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema accepted the plea.
According to court documents, Xueyong Wu, 40, cultivated relationships with Latin American drug trafficking organizations to transport and launder their United States-based drug proceeds. Wu is scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 29.
Much of this money was repatriated to Mexico through a complex series of international financial transactions. Wu received a percentage of the money involved in these transactions as compensation for organizing these laundering activities. Much of this money was generated through movement of cocaine or payment for cocaine that took place within the Eastern District of Virginia.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Michael P. Ben’Ary and David A. Peters, along with Trial Attorneys Steve Sola and Kerry Blackburn of the Criminal Division’s Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section are prosecuting the case.
The year 2020 marks the 150th anniversary of the Department of Justice. Learn more about the history of our agency at www.Justice.gov/Celebrating150Years.
Topic(s):
Drug Trafficking
Financial Fraud
Component(s):
Criminal Division
Criminal - Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section
USAO - Virginia, Eastern
Press Release Number:
20-602
Updated June 29, 2020
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/chinese-national-guilty-laundering-millions-mexican-drug-cartels
Oh, by the way. Happy FBI day anons.
Painted in gold?