Dusseldorf Almost three tons of gold, a value of over 150 million euros – simply disappeared. The precious metal should have been safe behind locked vault doors at PIM Gold GmbH in Heusenstamm near Frankfurt on behalf of its owners. But when the police looked in autumn 2019, nothing was found. Left over 7,500 defrauded private investors.
The story of PIM Gold begins with a heated argument between two gold traders and ends after a raid and extensive investigations in a mammoth lawsuit that lasted more than a year. The main person responsible is now behind bars, but the investigations and legal work-up are not yet complete.
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Investigative reporter Lars-Marten Nagel and Handelsblatt commodity expert Jakob Blume were the first to uncover the dubious business of PIM Gold GmbH. Businesses that went undiscovered for a long time despite early warning signals. In the new episode of Handelsblatt Crime, they describe this fraud case as a network of international money laundering and questionable gold transfers to a major gold refinery in Istanbul.
Handelsblatt Crime appears every 14 days and can be heard wherever there are podcasts.
More: You can hear the previous episode of Handelsblatt Crime here