A gold shop in Dong Nai province has been conned into buying a huge amount of fake gold dust by three Chinese nationals, in what appears to be the country's largest gold fraud by foreigners, police said Thursday.
A gold shop in Dong Nai province has been conned into buying a huge amount of fake gold dust by three Chinese nationals, in what appears to be the country’s largest gold fraud by foreigners, police said Thursday.
On Wednesday, three Chinese-speaking people, accompanied by a female Vietnamese interpreter, entered the N.P. gold shop in the provincial capital of Bien Hoa, offering to sell 60kg of gold dust, according to officers.
The shopkeeper took some of the gold for checking, and eventually agreed to buy the metal for VND10 billion (US$446,429) after positive test results.
The owner of the store only realized he had bought fake gold when all four had already left with the payment in cash, he told police.
Police have identified the swindlers as three Chinese nationals, who had earlier made two transactions with N.P.
In the previous transaction, the swindlers sold real gold dust, even though it was in small amounts, to build faith with the storekeeper, according to police.
While the Chinese men previously hired two different male interpreters to help them, they had the Vietnamese woman phone the shop prior to the Wednesday visit, saying they had a huge amount of gold dust to sell and asked the shopkeeper “to keep it secret to avoid robbery.”
They came with 58kg of fake gold dust and some small bags of the real metal, which the shop owner used in the authenticity tests.
The owner later discovered that what he had paid a hefty sum for was only bronze dust.
Dong Nai police said it is the largest gold fraud case with foreign culprits involved that has ever happened in Vietnam.
As of Friday morning, the three Chinese nationals had remained at large, according to police.
(Source: TTNews)
