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How to make convincing fake-gold bars

Posted on by Elias Kifle

By Theo Gray, Popular Science

On Wednesday, the BBC reported that millions of dollars in gold at the central bank of Ethiopia has turned out to be fake: What were supposed to be bars of solid gold turned out to be nothing more than gold-plated steel. They tried to sell the stuff to South Africa and it was sent back when the South Africans noticed this little problem.

This is an amazing story for two reasons. First, that an institution like a central bank could get ripped off this way, and second that the people responsible used such a lousy excuse for fake gold.
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I consider myself something of an expert on fake gold (I’m not really, I just think I am) ever since I was asked to give advice on the subject to the author Damien Lewis for his recent thriller, Cobra Gold. I worked out in detail for him how you could make really convincing fake gold, and ended up as a minor character in the novel, where I am known as “Goldfinger Gus”.

The problem with making good-quality fake gold is that gold is remarkably dense. It’s almost twice the density of lead, and two-and-a-half times more dense than steel. You don’t usually notice this because small gold rings and the like don’t weigh enough to make it obvious, but if you’ve ever held a larger bar of gold, it’s absolutely unmistakable: The stuff is very, very heavy.

The standard gold bar for bank-to-bank trade, known as a “London good delivery bar” weighs 400 troy ounces (over thirty-three pounds), yet is no bigger than a paperback novel. A bar of steel the same size would weigh only thirteen and a half pounds.

According to the news, the authorities have arrested pretty much everyone involved, from the people who sold the bank the gold, to bank officials, to the chemists responsible for testing and approving it on receipt.

The problem is, anyone who so much as picked up one of these bars should have known immediately that they were fake, no fancy test required. The weight alone is an instant dead giveaway. Even a forklift operator lifting a palette full of them should have noticed that his machine wasn’t working hard enough. I think they must have been swapped out while in storage: Someone walked in each day with a new fake gold bar and walked out with a real one. If they were fake on arrival then everyone who handled them in any way must have either had no experience with gold or been in on the scam.

Now, for me the more interesting question is, how do you make a fake gold bar that at least passes the pick-it-up test? The problem is that there are very few metals that are as dense as gold, and with only two exceptions they all cost as much or more than gold.

The first exception is depleted uranium, which is cheap if you’re a government, but hard for individuals to get. It’s also radioactive, which could be a bit of an issue.

The second exception is a real winner: tungsten. Tungsten is vastly cheaper than gold (maybe $30 dollars a pound compared to $12,000 a pound for gold right now). And remarkably, it has exactly the same density as gold, to three decimal places. The main differences are that it’s the wrong color, and that it’s much, much harder than gold. (Very pure gold is quite soft, you can dent it with a fingernail.)

A top-of-the-line fake gold bar should match the color, surface hardness, density, chemical, and nuclear properties of gold perfectly. To do this, you could could start with a tungsten slug about 1/8-inch smaller in each dimension than the gold bar you want, then cast a 1/16-inch layer of real pure gold all around it. This bar would feel right in the hand, it would have a dead ring when knocked as gold should, it would test right chemically, it would weigh *exactly* the right amount, and though I don’t know this for sure, I think it would also pass an x-ray fluorescence scan, the 1/16″ layer of pure gold being enough to stop the x-rays from reaching any tungsten. You’d pretty much have to drill it to find out it’s fake. (Unless, of course, central bank gold inspectors are wise to this trick and have developed a test for it: Something involving speed of sound say, or more powerful x-rays, or perhaps neutron activation analysis. If bars like this are actually a common problem, you certainly could devise a quick, non-destructive test for them, and for all I know, they have. Except, apparently, in Ethiopia.)

Such a top-quality fake London good delivery bar would cost about $50,000 to produce because it’s got a lot of real gold in it, but you’d still make a nice profit considering that a real one is worth closer to $400,000. A lower budget version could be made by using the same under-sized tungsten slug but casting lead-antimony alloy around it (to match the hardness, sound, and feel of gold), then electroplating on a heavy coating of gold. Such a bar would still feel and sound right and be only very slightly underweight, while costing less than $500 to produce in quantity. It would not pass x-ray fluorescence, and whether it passes a chemical test would depend on how thick the electroplating is.

This is the solution I recommended for Cobra Gold, because they only needed their fake gold to pass a field inspection, which is to say, someone picking it up and knowing what gold should feel like when you lift it. You may quibble for other aspects of the plot if you like, but I think the fake gold would have worked.

And let me tell you, it’s a sad day for criminal masterminds when my fictional fake gold, designed only to trick a terrorist cell, is so much better than the real fake gold used to rip off a real government bank for millions of real dollars.

15 thoughts on “How to make convincing fake-gold bars”

  1. Shame on those idiots and the morons: the al-chemists, the bankers, and so-called gov’t leaders. This story tells the gap that exists between the world and Ethiopia’s ‘guardians’ calling themselves a government. Maferiawoch.

  2. Woyane’s must know this. The problem is: they are the ones who tried to cheat the south african buyer, as their every day cheating business in Ethiopia.

    DON’T EXPECT ANY THING FROM SELF APPOINTED WOYANE PROFESSIONALS AND BANK ADMINISTRATORS. MONEY CAN NOT CHANGE THEIR PAST. THEY CONTINUE TO BEHAVE AS REBELS, UNTILL WE CHECK THEM OUT OF THE PALACE.

  3. It’s shame, indeed. How the central bank failed to test the “gold” it’s holding is fake or real? There is clear cut answer to this. Nobody but the key TPLF/EPRDF government agents have access to the Gold-holdings at the central bank-they are the ones who monitor processing and put it there. [Ethiopia is gold mining contry and most likely the gold bars at the central bank are of Ethiopian origin] Thus it sounds like TPLF agents cheated the central bank of Ethiopia. Even worse, they wanted to extend their cheating to a foreign land. Why they did not scan before exporting the fake gold? It does not take a hell lot of work to know if the gold is real or fake.

  4. What do we know if the South Africans and London merchants didn’t play the trick? We are told this gold came back to Ethiopia labeled as “fake” not when it left Ethiopia. I am the last person to believe Ethiopians will bother themselves to fake gold knowing how bad they can be punished if discovered. On that where do they get the technology to do all what we read above? The central bank runs by professionals not by political appointees. I suspect the crooks in South Africa and London to have hands in this scheme. The reason is this. They have all the technology they need and can target their victims as they did now with Ethiopia. It is rather ignorance from the bank employees that exposed them to this than any thing else. The conspiracy must come from somewhere else. Tu! belugne.

  5. The so called illegitimate govt of Ethiopia or woyane has tricked the whole game including some dam people, then he accuses those who got a little involvement on the game while the majority of the benefit that was gained from the gold went to the idiot master mind tplf officials…we will hear more games done and orchestrated by tplf as long as this tplf worest terririost group stays in powerr…how many games that tplf has had played so far for the last 17 years…oh..infinite numbers. let me take you take you back to 1993 trajedy which was done in collaboration of woyane and shabia. A money had been taking out from the Ethiopian bank directly to the shabia govt, the employee’s of the bank had tried to stop this illegal activities, however weyane continues to take the money and the people who tried to save their country wealth respect to the law had lost their job. Therefore the whole game is YABERASHEN TEBASA YAYE BE ESAT AYCHAWETEM…the bank workers wouldn’t tell anyone, since it is b/n life and death. But my whole point is what is the solution, it that keep taking about enormous game or come together by strengthening our unity form inside and outside and save our country from the weyane gangs? I believe we need to do our individual contribution to stop this end less game done by woyane…other wise woyane will keep damaging our country and people while we keep talking about it…GOBEZ ENASEBEBET….

  6. I have no problem with fake gold story…. It could happend to any govt. or banker but my problem is if I steel almost 400million birr in gold and I get away with it for the next three years… do you think I will be hanging around in EThiopia? I think the thef are idiots and the morons or the govt. trying to PULL THE FAST ONE ON US… tell me who in his or her right mind set and hang around in Addis Ababa after they managed to loot 40 million dollars in gold?

  8. It clearly indicates the government’s failure to hire and respect professionals either as a banker or as a chemist. Most of the people who works in key positions are the government’s political proteges.
    Don’t forget that the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (the largest bank with 80% of the country’s economy at stake) is run by a 30+ year old and virtually a new graduate. Who knows what kind of mess he is going to live behind.

  9. This story tells us the chemists and possibly the supplier may not be involved. It is suggesting that someone who has acess to the stock was walking in with fake bars and swaping it for the real ones. It all points to heavy weight ‘officials’ who can get access to whenever they want. It is a theft by the government!

  10. My gut feeling is such a huge fraud in such a sensitive institution as National Bank couldn’t happen without a hand from senior Woyanes. Aint they the ones involved in this merchandise, after all?Walk down the streets of Piassa!1

  11. I wonder how Weyanie agents take part even in this forum, and try to blame the South Africans. A few of them think we are dumb, and blame the bank officials, or those who test, or even the government for “not taking the appropriate measure.”

    Yeleba Ayne derek melisso lib yaderk!

    Our national treasury has never been stolen even during the Derg, let alone the Emperor’s time. But it happened under the thugs.

    We know how a maximum security keeps ordinary thieves away from reaching the most secured safe boxes of the National Bank of Ethiopia.

    The only group – and I’m 100% certain – that is capable of commiting such high-level crime against a poor nation, and and cover it up with a drama that extends up to Johannesburgh is nothing but the Mafia group led by Zenawi.

    As a cover up, the Mafia gang should round up and throw as many Bank officials as possible. The fool would buy the crap, and believe the “government” when the “court” sentences the “culprits” to long and painful prison sentences. Good luck, nation!

  12. It is not new feature of woyane to steel Bank. Do you remember Ato seyoum Mesfin , as per his own words proudly stated, was one of the robbers who robed Axum Commercial bank in 80`s.

  13. All this is a cover up. The gold has been stolen from the vaults. As the article put it “They must have been swapped out while in storage” I strongly agree with that. That is exactly what has happened.
    The History of Weyane (TPLF) proves such act to be true. They were thieves and bandit when they were in the bushes, their behavior did not change when they join city life. These are evil group of people who care nothing about their national identity or mafia style operation.
    Release all the people that are in prison. They have done nothing. All this activity is just a cover up. The Bar of gold was removed by Weyane agents without the knowledge of the bank authorities. Those who suspected something was going on were found hanged and dead shot in broad day light by TPLF agents.
    Since this is a national treasury it should be investigated by an independent group form outside couple with genuine Ethiopian experts. Shame on you Weyane.

  14. “What do we know if the South Africans and London merchants didn’t play the trick? We are told this gold came back to Ethiopia labeled as “fake” not when it left Ethiopia.” Bwendimu

    This scenario is very unlikey. The gold bars were not sent alone but TPLF agents took them to SA to carry out the deal. The South Africans checked the bars in the transaction process, TPLF agents present, and told them to their faces “you brought fake gold”. Imagine low-life wanna be cheaters, TPLF agents, sweating hearing such news. kkkkkkkkk

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