Behind the counter of Mok Sang Kee Jewellery, a small shop in central Hong Kong, its manager is on guard against fraud.
But Mok Yeuk Ping’s age-old methods of testing gold for purity may not be enough to protect him against today’s swindles. As gold prices rise ever higher, touching a nominal record of $1,424.10 a troy ounce last month, the yellow metal is attracting ever more inventive fraudsters.
And Hong Kong, in its position as the back door to the booming Chinese gold market, is a prime location for gold counterfeiters. Haywood Cheung, president of the Chinese Gold & Silver Exchange Society, Hong Kong’s century-old bullion exchange, said goldsmiths and jewellers in the territory had been duped into buying between 200 and 2,000 ounces of a new, hard to detect alloy passed off as bullion.