As of 23:00 on October 18, the spot price of gold in London hovered near $2,717 per ounce, and once hit a record high of $2,720.140 per ounce during the session. COMEX gold futures briefly reached $2,735.5 an ounce.
Unexpectedly, gold, which has reached a new high, has been targeted by criminals. According to media reports, the Shanghai police recently found that a 60-year-old man bought 540 grams of gold bars (about 380,000 yuan), so they carried out a telephone verification of the situation, and found that the 60-year-old man was facing a very high risk of being deceived, and sent to the local police station to dissuade him. It is understood that the sixty-year-old man met a netizen on the Internet for investment and financial management, and the gold has been shipped out through online car-hailing. The police quickly linked up with the ride-hailing company to call the ride-hailing driver back, and successfully "recovered" 540 grams of gold bars.
Similar cases have occurred in other regions. Not long ago, the Taijiang Branch of the Fuzhou City Public Security Bureau started with the flow of funds involved in the wire fraud case, followed the clues of "abnormal" gold transaction and delivery, and successfully smashed a criminal gang that used suspected fraudulent funds to purchase gold for "money laundering" by collecting and transferring on behalf of others. While arresting the suspects, the police seized a total of 54 packages in transit and unsent on the spot, containing more than 90 gold products such as gold bars and jewelry, weighing more than 1,800 grams and worth more than 1.38 million yuan, and colluding more than 10 cases of telecommunications network fraud.
A person from the risk control department of a lending institution told reporters that behind this, the new fraud method of "gold purchase + mailing" is becoming more and more rampant. Specifically, fraudsters will first defraud the public through fraudulent methods such as rebates, fake online investment and financial management, and pig killing operations, and after gaining the "trust" of the public, these fraudsters will trick the public into buying gold and transporting it to the designated place by express mail or online car-hailing on the grounds of "paying handling fees", "paying deposits" and "investing in shares", etc., to carry out fraud and "launder" the fraudulent funds.
"Recently, we have also encountered a number of borrowers who suddenly applied for large loans, which was very different from their usual borrowing amount (for living expenses). After learning about the status of these abnormal loan applications, the risk control department quickly intervened manually and learned that they planned to use the loan to buy gold and express it to the designated place to recharge the so-called investment account in large amounts. He told reporters that their anti-fraud team quickly dissuaded them from falling into the "trap" of fraudsters.
The reporter noticed that the police in many places have recently issued a reminder - any request to buy gold to be mailed to a designated address, or to deliver gold to a "third party" in person, is a fraud.
A new type of "gold purchase + mail" scam has appeared in many places
According to media reports, in August 2024, when the police of the Chating Police Station of the Taijiang Public Security Bureau conducted a daily visit to the jurisdiction, they learned that there was an "abnormal situation" in the local express station - two strange men often came to pick up the parcel recently, and many of the express deliveries were packaged by well-known gold stores. And the two men drove around, not like they were local residents.
After intelligent investigation methods, the local police learned the identity information of the pick-up person and determined that this express station had become a clear delivery address for "sending gold" in a telecommunications fraud case. In this regard, the police set up a control and investigation near the express station, and after grasping the trajectory of the pick-up and the facts of the crime, they decisively launched a net collection operation.
The reporter learned that this is just a microcosm of the recent "gold purchase + mail" scam. Recently, Zhengzhou, Wuhan, Jinhua City, Zhejiang Province and other places have used express delivery and online car-hailing to transport gold to carry out "online fraud + offline withdrawal" of telecommunication network fraud cases - in order to quickly carry out fraud and transfer laundered stolen money, criminals trick people into buying gold and transport it to designated places through express delivery or online car-hailing, causing large property losses to the latter.
The above-mentioned person from the risk control department of the lending institution pointed out that they have recently encountered a number of cases where borrowers have applied for large loans to buy gold and quickly arrived at the designated location. After timely dissuading and reminding these borrowers not to be deceived, they did a "review analysis" of this kind of fraud and found that borrowers mainly encountered two types of "gold purchase + mail" scams, one is that fraudsters first publish part-time advertisements on the Internet to trick people into completing part-time jobs first to get small rebates. After that, the fraudsters tricked the latter into buying gold and mailing it to the designated place on the basis that the platform points of these people were not high enough (it is difficult to withdraw the above-mentioned rebate income); Second, fraudsters pretend to be investment experts, advocate "high returns", induce people to go to gold stores to buy gold and mail it directly to the designated address, claiming that as long as they receive gold, they will "double the top-up" of people's so-called investment accounts.
"At present, as long as we find that the borrower applies for a loan amount that is significantly higher than in the past and there is an abnormal situation, we will understand their specific loan purpose through manual intervention, and once we find that the lender has taken out a large loan to buy gold and mail it to the designated address, we will quickly dissuade and warn of the risk of fraud." He told reporters. In addition, his loan platform is starting to post risk warnings in a prominent position on the loan application interface - warning borrowers to be wary of the new fraud method of "gold purchase + mail".
Why gold is being targeted by fraudsters
Why unscrupulous fraudsters use gold as a means of fraud.
The reporter learned that behind this, the main reason is that with the continuous increase in the monitoring of large transfers and abnormal transactions by the anti-fraud center and banks, fraudsters have begun to look for new ways to transfer funds in order to circumvent these restrictions and reduce the risk of being intercepted by the banking system and tracked by the public security organs.
As a high-value, portable and easy-to-liquidate asset, gold has suddenly become an "ideal tool" in the eyes of fraudsters - by inducing people to buy gold and mail it to a designated location to commit fraud, fraudsters can move funds more discreetly and quickly, making it more difficult to trace.
In addition, compared with "electronic transfer", the purchase of gold often has a stronger sense of substance and trust in the hearts of some people, and it is easy to have the illusion of "real investment", so as to relax their vigilance.
This also gives fraudsters a chance to take advantage of it. In the new scam of "gold purchase + mail", these fraudsters can successfully obtain gold without meeting or showing up to transfer funds, which is more subtle and confusing than online transfers.
A police source said that in order to avoid the interception and tracking of fraudulent funds, fraudsters induce victims to buy gold and other valuables to mail or deliver when committing fraud, and sell them for cash immediately after receiving the goods.
A pawnshop person in East China told reporters that affected by economic fluctuations, gold has become a very "sought-after" pawn item in the pawn market.
"In the past, our pawns were mainly brand-name bags and limited-edition business cards and watches, but with the increase in economic fluctuations, the difficulty of disposing of these pawns has increased and the valuation has fallen, resulting in pawnshops being more willing to accept gold as pawns." He told reporters. After all, gold with record prices and good liquidity can make the asset disposal process more profitable for pawnshops.
The pawnshop person pointed out that as various localities intensify the crackdown on the new scam of "gold purchase + mailing", he currently requires customers who pawn gold to implement real-name registration, including "the integration of people and certificates"; If a strange customer suddenly pawns a large gram of gold to raise funds, he will not dare to take the order.
In his view, if we want to intensify the crackdown on "gold laundering and cash-out" in this new type of fraud, the relevant departments also need to cut off the "gold mailing chain", so that it is difficult for criminals to "turn a large amount of gold into zero" and find a number of private gold recycling stores and pawnshops to "disperse and cash out" the operation space.
According to media reports, the relevant person in charge of the Criminal Investigation Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security said that in view of the new methods and characteristics of telecommunications network fraud, public security organs in various places have been deployed to carry out anti-fraud propaganda for express logistics personnel and online car-hailing drivers, and guide logistics companies and online car-hailing platforms to formulate response strategies and effectively eliminate risks and hidden dangers.
At the same time, the public security organs reminded the majority of couriers and online car-hailing drivers to raise their awareness of prevention, and to report suspicious situations such as sending large amounts of cash, transporting unknown packages, and frequently changing transaction locations in the process of receiving orders, and not to become "accomplices" in telecommunications network fraud.
Can financial institutions build a firewall by "intercepting in the middle of the matter".
The risk control department of the above-mentioned loan institution revealed to reporters that in the face of the increasingly rampant new scam of "gold purchase + mail", they are starting to strengthen the corresponding anti-fraud interception.
"We have analyzed some of the recently cracked gold purchase + mail fraud cases, and found that the fraud methods of fraudsters are becoming more and more diversified, including swiping fraud + purchase of mailed gold withdrawal, investment and financial fraud + purchase of mailed gold recharge, pig killing plate fraud + mailing gold to make money, etc., to manipulate the psychology of different victims to carry out fraud." He told reporters that in response to this situation, they will use AI face-to-face risk control tools to capture some abnormal facial changes and behaviors of borrowers in the online loan application process, and hand over the manual anti-fraud team to quickly intervene to dissuade and remind him to recognize the "buy gold + mail" scam.
He said that in order to "maximize" the amount of fraud, these criminals will trick and instigate victims to go to multiple online loan platforms to apply for loans. Once some victims still do not see the above-mentioned "scam" after being dissuaded, the loan platform where he works will take measures such as delayed loan disbursement and repeated SMS reminders to continuously guide him to gradually "identify" the fraud risk.
"At present, interception is still a key part of our efforts to prevent borrowers from falling into gold purchase + mailing scams." The person from the risk control department of the loan platform said bluntly. In the actual operation process, interception during the event may not be able to completely prevent the occurrence of fraud, and there are always "fish that slip through the net", resulting in the loan platform also facing the victim's "post-event accountability" - why did he fail to "withhold" the loan funds in time, causing him to suffer a lot of property losses.
In the eyes of industry insiders, an effective way to more effectively prevent the new type of "gold purchase + mail" scam is to expand the publicity and popularization of anti-fraud knowledge, so that more people can identify the traces of fraud as soon as they come into contact with this kind of scam.
The police reminded that online strangers who ask people to buy gold and other valuables for others for any reason, and ask for online car-hailing to be delivered quickly, mailed to a designated place or sent to pick up by door, are all frauds.
(National Business Daily)