83 tons of fake gold bars backing $ 3 billion in loans in China – this man claims he knows the truth

The gold industry was shocked when it was discovered that 83 tons of fake gold bars were used to support loans worth 20 billion yuan in China. While Chinese authorities haven’t said whether real gold exists or where it is, one insider claims they know what happened.

The mystery behind the Chinese scandal involving 83 tons of fake gold bars

One of China’s largest gold jewelry manufacturers, Kingold Jewelry Inc., was embroiled in a major fake gold scandal earlier this year. The company used 83 tons of gold bars to back loans worth 20 billion yuan ($ 3 billion) from 14 Chinese financial institutions. This amount of gold would be equivalent to about 22% of China’s annual gold production. However, the media reported in July that the gold bars turned out to be fake and were only gold-plated copper alloys, but the company and its executives denied any wrongdoing.

Kingold Jewelry is a Nasdaq-listed company headquartered in Wuhan, China. Its share price has plunged 88% since the scandal surfaced at $ 0.1334 on Wednesday. The company announced its plan for voluntary removal from the Nasdaq in August.

Although Chinese authorities have not disclosed where the real gold is or if it exists, one man claims he knows what happened, NTD reported last week. Yizhi Wei told the publication that the real gold bars were exchanged for fakes and taken out of China to Hong Kong, where they were sold below market prices. He claimed to be one of the middlemen.

The publication described Wei as “a member of the so-called Chinese red aristocracy … belonging to the Manchu ethnic minority.” Furthermore, “Your father was a high-ranking Communist official” and “Your grandfather was a Communist revolutionary who helped the regime take power.”

Wei explained: “Every day he came from the Chinese city of Shenzhen. We went to buy it every day, 10 kilos, 20 kilos, 30 kilos. Then we will sell it in the afternoon of the same day. We made money thanks to the price differences. We didn’t know where the gold came from. “

He became certain that the gold bars he bought and sold were the same as those belonging to Kingold Jewelry because the numbers printed on them matched the range of numbers supposedly printed on Kingold Jewelry’s gold bars.

Wei added that almost all organized crime groups and Hong Kong triads have been involved in gold laundering. They were responsible for contacting the buyers and transporting the gold. He noted that all the gold buyers they found were large foreign investors, not Chinese. “This is because there is a problem with a person in China buying gold in large quantities, so he was looking for foreign buyers, those from the United States, Europe and Japan,” he told the news.

Furthermore, he believes that the people investigated by the Chinese authorities into the fake gold scandal are just scapegoats as the scale of this operation “is not something one or two people can do”, noting that the amount he was involved with ” it’s just the tip of the iceberg. “

The gold bars were discovered as fakes in February, but Chinese media and regulators were silent until June, the publication pointed out. Wei commented: “To this day, no one knows where the gold is. That’s why I want to say that the Chinese system is rotten from its roots. “

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