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  1. #1
    Thailand Expat misskit's Avatar
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    Chon Buri pawn shop loses millions in fake gold scam

    All that glitters is not necessarily gold. Owners of a Chon Buri gold shop learned the hard way, explaining to police that they’ve been tricked by a group of scammers pawning fake gold. Krit and Anadda Tianmai, owners of the Thong Tian Nid Gold Shop, say they lost more than 9 million baht.

    People, many who claimed they were construction workers needing the cash to pay workers on site, pawned chains that were about the same size and weight. When gold is pawned rather than sold, it is not cut into to determine if it is real. But due to the suspicious activity, Anadda decided to cut into a chain and discovered the chains are actually silver coated in gold with real gold clasps.


    The fake gold was pawned for high prices from 24,000 baht up to 120,000 baht. Over the course of 5 weeks, around 12 people came in to pawn the phony gold.


    Authorities are now in contact with many of the local gold traders to warn them of the situation and see if they can get some further leads that could lead to an arrest.


    The gold shop owners have filed a report and turned security footage into police.


    Chon Buri pawn shop loses millions in fake gold scam | The Thaiger

  2. #2
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    i bet he cant tell,STORK FROM BUTTER.

  3. #3
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    There is something very wrong with this.

    No gold merchant worth their salt would be foozled over such a short period by a slew of fraudsters rolling in from construction sites peddling their shonky "silver" with a gold gilt.

    It's bollocks.

  4. #4
    Hangin' Around cyrille's Avatar
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    Yeah that was exactly my reaction.

    Falling for it time after time for five weeks?

  5. #5
    Thailand Expat Backspin's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Seekingasylum View Post
    There is something very wrong with this.

    No gold merchant worth their salt would be foozled over such a short period by a slew of fraudsters rolling in from construction sites peddling their shonky "silver" with a gold gilt.

    It's bollocks.
    Yeah. This is insane

  6. #6
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    Even at current prices, a loss of 9 million Baht is a lot. What is the current silver price? It isn't a straight loss, he still has a lot of silver. And when you pawn gold here, what percentage of the market price do you get in cash?

    Next point, gold plating silver chains is not something the average Joe can do. You'd need specialist knowledge. Such as a gold shop owner might have.

    Next, the maths is misleading. If there were 12 people all at the highest unit value of B120,000 that is only B1.44M. Those 12 people would all have had to come in more than 6 times each. If there were just 12 players, which is already quite a lot in a criminal conspiracy, they pawned an average of B750,000 each. As you do.

  7. #7
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    Definitely something wrong with this story. Any gold dealer would do a test if he was unsure of the origin.

    Gold weighs approximately twice as much as silver, to your average gold dealer that should have been a giveaway.

    No smart crim would use silver in this scam - titanium would be the crims metal of choice. Almost same weight as gold and a fraction of the price of silver.

  8. #8
    I'm in Jail

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    ^ Dude, titanium is incredibly light. And being 6 times stronger than steel, much, much harder to make into a chain.

  9. #9
    Thailand Expat
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    ^
    forgive me, brain fart I meant tungsten. Same density as gold and often used in fake gold bars

  10. #10
    Thailand Expat Pragmatic's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Latindancer View Post
    ^ Dude, titanium is incredibly light. And being 6 times stronger than steel, much, much harder to make into a chain.
    But as an ingot it only takes a small amount of real gold coating to pass the tests.

  11. #11
    The Fool on the Hill bowie's Avatar
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    Illegal Laotian arrested for scamming Pattaya gold shop out of 9 million baht - Pattaya Mail

    Illegal Laotian arrested for scamming Pattaya gold shop out of 9 million baht
    By Pattaya Mail August 18, 2020

    Chon Buri pawn shop loses millions in fake gold scam-p-02-lao-gold-swindler-pic
    The con artist is caught on a CCTV camera as he pawns his fake gold chains at a gold shop.


    Nongprue police arrested a Laotian gangster who allegedly scammed a local gold shop out of 9 million baht by pawning fake gold.

    San Ulthanin, the 43-year-old suspect is an illegal alien who conspired with several others to repeatedly pawn plated gold necklaces weighing a total 376 baht before they were caught by the unnamed East Pattaya shop’s owner.


    Chon Buri pawn shop loses millions in fake gold scam-p-02-lao-gold-swindler-pic
    San Ulthanin, the illegal Lao con artist is arrested by Pattaya police on Sukhumvit Highway.


    The con artists rotated amongst themselves to sell the fake gold during the past month. On the whole the criminal caused about 9 million baht in damages to the gold shop. Unfortunately for the gold merchants, it took them a while to catch on. It began when the suspect first came in posing as a construction contractor who needed cash to pay workers.

    He sold a four-baht-weight necklace that the retailer didn’t cut open to check whether it was genuine gold. Soon the man’s friends came in, each pawning necklaces for which they were paid 76,000-120,000 baht. Again, their genuineness was not checked.

    Chon Buri pawn shop loses millions in fake gold scam-p-02-lao-gold-swindler-pic
    The gold shop owner shows how he broke the chain to reveal that it was indeed fake gold.


    It wasn’t until the same gang came in several times selling similar-looking jewelry that the couple got suspicious and broke apart the necklaces, promising to compensate the men if the gold was, in fact, solid all the way through.

    It wasn’t and one member of the gang was captured by police. He initially was charged with residing in Thailand illegally pending further investigation into the gold scam.

    Chon Buri pawn shop loses millions in fake gold scam-p-02-lao-gold-swindler-pic
    Police take the swindler to the scene of the crime in East Pattaya.
    Last edited by bowie; 18-08-2020 at 06:54 PM.

  12. #12
    Thailand Expat Backspin's Avatar
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    What an idiot. You pull off a scam like that , get the hell out of dodge

  13. #13
    Thailand Expat Saint Willy's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by bowie View Post
    It wasn’t until the same gang came in several times selling similar-looking jewelry that the couple got suspicious and broke apart the necklaces, promising to compensate the men if the gold was, in fact, solid all the way through
    surely at this point you would take your chain and fuck off...?


    but if each visit was approx 100,000 baht they did a fuck load of visits for 9 million

  14. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by TheRealKW View Post
    surely at this point you would take your chain and fuck off...?


    but if each visit was approx 100,000 baht they did a fuck load of visits for 9 million
    thats 90trips,i used to do that in a week in my hay-days.

  15. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by TheRealKW View Post
    surely at this point you would take your chain and fuck off...?


    but if each visit was approx 100,000 baht they did a fuck load of visits for 9 million
    Plenty of dots that don't join up on this one.

    The gold shop staff handle gold all the time. Our friend the Internet tells me that "gold has a density of 19.32 g/cm3, silver has a density of only 10.49 g/cm3." That is nearly a factor of 2 and it went unnoticed?

    How do you gold plate a silver chain? One link at a time? It can't be as easy as plating a single piece.

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