PMMC warns of heightened gold fraud
The Precious Minerals Marketing Company (PMMC) has cautioned the public to be wary of ongoing gold scam schemes by some dubious individuals.
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It cited the activities of gold scammers who presented fake photos and videos of gold available for sale.
“Some of these eventually turn out to be gold-plated tungsten.
Using fake pictures and videos, gold scammers then convince victims to provide huge amounts of money to transport the gold from mining sites or specific locations to Accra for the said transaction.
The Managing Director (MD) of the PMMC, Nana Akwasi Awuah, said in an interview that though the company had been educating the public on the various adopted schemes by scammers to defraud unsuspecting customers, some of the victims of gold fraud were victims of greed.
“Sometimes, they ask for discounts as high as between 10 per cent and 20 per cent on the international market price, which is very unrealistic for anyone who is experienced in the trade,” he said.
“So, when they come with those expectations, and unfortunately when they don’t come to us for us to guide them well to manage their expectations in terms of the discounts, then they meet someone else who tells them they will even give them 50 per cent discount.
Then they advance the monies.
“And it starts with bring some money so that we transport the gold from this place to that place”, the MD added.
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Public Education
Nana Awuah said his outfit had embarked on public education and awareness on the activities of gold scammers and how to identify fraud.
“Again, we are in close collaboration with the security agencies such that for any company that has a licence with us that is involved or is under investigation for fraud or scam, what we do is suspend the licence until the investigation is over.
And in some cases, once it is ongoing, we refuse to even renew the licence for such companies who put in applications for renewal.
So, these are the efforts we have made,” he maintained.
The PMMC boss noted that through the awareness creation on gold scam schemes, one of such victims has magnanimously agreed to tell her story as a way of sensitising and conscientizing others who may find themselves in such situations, through a documentary that has been put together, which is ready to be publicised anytime soon.
Nana Akwasi Awuah, who was not in the position to give the exact figures or even estimated figures of persons who have been scammed in the last year, said usually the victims only come to PMMC to report that they had been scammed, but fail to state the true value of how much they had been scammed.
The MD emphasised that “the advice has continuously been that always get PMMC involved in your gold transaction.
Because you see, I have had instances where people come to me and they have a gold transaction.
I say to them, send an email, copy PMMC and indicate that the gold should come to PMMC and that without PMMC involved in the transaction, you will not proceed.
The moment PMMC comes into the equation, they all run away.”
Blocking Loopholes
Responding to the issue of gold leaving Ghana that had been unaccounted for and whether all these loopholes had been blocked, he hinted that the establishment of a monitoring and compliance task force by PMMC had helped to reduce the incidence of smuggling by some of gold licence holders.
He noted that even though the problem still existed, some progress had been made which had been able to curb it.
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“Gold smuggling is a worrying issue that we will continue to grapple with, but I am confident and happy to note that we have been able to make some considerable progress towards dealing with this phenomenon.