Swiss gold refiners are beefing up security features on their kilobars to tackle the number of increasingly sophisticated fake - branded products , mostly from China , ending up in bank vaults . In the past few decades , fraudulent bars made of real gold worth $ 50 m have been identified , but thousands more are believed to be in circulation , violating regulations preventing money - laundering or the use of fake materials . banks said testing standards for the gold standard 50 % can highlight some fakes , while some banks have responded by restricting purchases of gold from Asian markets .
Swiss gold refiners are beefing up security features on their kilobars to tackle the number of increasingly sophisticated fake-branded products, mostly from China, ending up in bank vaults. In the past three years, fraudulent bars made of real gold worth $50m have been identified, but thousands more are believed to be in circulation, violating regulations preventing money-laundering or the use of conflict materials. Experts said testing purity for the industry standard 99.99% can highlight some fakes, while some banks have responded by restricting purchases of gold from Asian markets.