TRADE FINANCE

We recently saw a comment by a colleague on the subject of buying gold in Africa with the objective of bringing it to a local refinery.  His commonsense comments are completely in line with what we've seen ourselves, which is why we are sharing it with you. 

Offers to sell and buy gold are abundant on the Internet. Individuals, lured by the prospect of becoming instant millionaires, become accomplices in propagating these fraudulent gold deals to their network of brokers, agents, mandates and intermediaries. As a result, inboxes are flooded with so called soft offers, FCOs, and with unknown buyers and sellers willing to trade in impossible amounts of gold. Be advised that 99.99% of these internet deals are FAKE and you probably will never see a penny for your efforts. Below are six common indicators that the deal is bogus. If you have a deal that has one of these indicators “run don’t walk” away from that deal, because you are wasting your time and energy for a deal in which you will never receive compensation.

1. You see the term Au, Au Metal or Aurum Utalium. Real professionals in gold do not use these terms, they simply say GOLD. These other terms used by the self appointed mandates are most likely used to impress the unwitting broker. Au is the chemical symbol for gold used by chemists and physicists. Aurum is the Latin word for gold and Utalium is the so-called “New Latin” which, roughly translated means” useful element”. All of these are fancy terms used by the perpetrators of fraud and not by the real gold professionals.
2. You see deals with very large amounts of gold. Most people who buy physical delivery of gold purchase in amounts of OUNCES, not kilograms or tonnes. Buyers of large amounts of gold, 1,000 ounces or more, do not need to resort to internet deals through complete strangers. They can buy the gold DIRECT from any Precious Metals Firm or LBMA market maker.
3. You see terms such as “with rolls and extensions”. Gold deals do not use “supply contract language’ and can usually be completed in thirty minutes to one hour AND NOT MONTHS.
4. You see discounts on hallmarked gold. Finished hallmarked gold is almost never discounted. It is very much like currency and currency does not have discounts.
5. You see exceedingly low prices per kilogram for dor’e bars and alluvial gold. At the time of this writing, one kilogram of gold sells for approximately $35,000 USD. When you see prices or dor’e bars and alluvial gold 50% below market price you should be very afraid of that deal.
6. The gold deal comes to you via the Internet. Why would a real gold player resort to the Internet to find large amounts of gold through unknown people when it can be purchased directly from a LBMA market maker?

Gold deals are being closed every day and they are being done retail. 99% of all gold deals are done retail. The Internet has brought more scammers into the gold market and more agents looking to become overnight millionaires.  

Our thanks to James White for the above comments.  James works with a provider of gold for future delivery at current market prices.  We can arrange contact with him.

You should always ask yourself why anyone would sell a commodity at a substantial discount to market values.  It's like someone selling a US dollar at 60 cents.  There is rarely a good reason to do so.

Some business people do have reliable contacts in Africa, and will have the necessary relationships (after proper due diligence) to be able to export gold successfully against the odds.  For those importers,  we can arrange documentary letters of credit and stand by letters of credit in favor of your gold supplier.