Counterfeit gold coins appeared - watch out for the following
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Gold community concerned - Cases of fake gold ingots and coins increase in Germany
In June 2022, the biggest media in Germany revealed that in Cologne, 3 criminals had sold particularly well made counterfeit gold coins (gold Maple Leafs, 1 ounce) and cost many victims high amounts of money (about 80 000 €). The police assumes that even more counterfeit coins are still circulating. For us, this, especially because of the "excellent" quality of these fakes, is reason enough to talk about this case. The thing is that these coins show an almost astonishingly similar minting quality and also the weight and dimensions have been achieved perfectly. Especially the appearence and the quality of copying fine details have obviously gotten better within the last years. This can be seen very clearly when comparing a Maple Leaf with a tungsten core and from the year 2015 and the variant that has jjust been circulating in Cologne (see slider below).
All these aspects lead to one of the biggest Facebook groups about "gold coins and precious metal fakes" discussing these events thoroughly. Official pictures of those fakes and corresponding newspaper coverage have been examined, first opinions have been exchanged. Very soon, the posts debated how to best protect yourself against these fakes.
Gold test device does not detect the fake?!
How significant and active the facebook group is within the domaine of precious metal objects was shown when one admin promptly shared information of a victim in the group to warn the members. The impressive quality of the fake combined with the fraudsters' barefaced greed caused a stir within the members (see opposite excerpts of the posts).
However, the next information given by the victim was very important for us because of course, the question arose whether our test device for gold coins, the "GoldScreenBox" (predecessor of the GoldScreenSensors) detected the fakes. The post below claims that the device did not detect the counterfeit coins.
GoldScreenSensor - The best test device against professionally counterfeit gold coins and gold bars
That made it clear for us at Goldanalytix: We have to look into this because, who knows: perhaps, an overly zealous competitor wanted to spread rumours, so we contacted the press office of the police in Cologne. Shortly after, the Chief Inspector in charge called us back and shared relevant information about the gold fakes found with the fraudsters and victims. The fakes were, as already mentioned, Maple Leaf gol coins 1 ounce of the years 2005 to 2009. They consisted of gold-plated tungsten fakes and showed the same densitiy and apperance as the originals (see pictures in the slider).
In case of such professional gold fakes, the measurement with the GoldScreenSensor is an excellent non-destructive testing method to detect the fakes in a fast and easy manner. This is why it was so important to us to check the rumour that the GoldScreen devices didn't detect the fake coins. We sent a GoldScreenSensor to the Chief Inspector in Cologne as a loan unit and directly received the pictures of the measurement:
The police's measurements showed that the conductance deviated significantly from the set value (45 MS/m) - also through the capsule. Every fake has been detected as such without any doubt - the tungsten core has been clearly declared as such as well because the conductance (about 20 MS/m) lays within the conductance of pure gold.
More victims of the gold fraud in Cologne suspected
Our thanks go to the police in Cologne for successfully arresting the fraudsters and for delivering us another proof of the GoldScreenSensor's performance. It was clearly shown that even counterfeit coins of "highest quality", that without other methods wouldn't have been detectable without destroying the object, can be tested for their genuineness within seconds.
Unfortunately, it is still not clear how many buyers have become victims of these fraudsters, but the investigators fear "that there may be more victims that don't even know that they have counterfeit coins in their safe." Now more than ever, you should be cautious when buying or selling precious metals and use exact testing methods like our GoldScreenSensor.
Not only does it mean a financial loss for the buyers, but can also cause a big problem when selling these coins because one must not sell fake coins and and if the fake coin is discovered, the seller is liable. Therefore, there is even a high legal risk for the victims under certain circumstances!
So better make sure and test your objects!
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