Gold is easy to fake. A properly structured deal is very hard to fake. This guide shows you how African gold is really priced, tested and exported, how the scams work, and how to buy safely.
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Every week, buyers around the world receive messages like this. Many who answer lose money. Some lose far more: they are robbed at “inspections”, detained at hotels, or caught holding smuggled gold.
Africa produces real gold, and real gold is bought and sold legally across the continent every day. But around that trade has grown an industry of fake sellers, fake documents, fake gold and fake buyers.
You cannot protect yourself by learning to recognise gold with your eyes. You protect yourself with a process: verified people, independent assay, legal export and payment only after the results.
Verify the sellerLicences confirmed with the regulator, not with the seller
Legal exportExport permit, royalties paid, nothing smuggled
Secure logisticsProfessional transport and insurance, no hand-carrying
Accredited refineryGold weighed, sampled and fire assayed
Pay after assayMoney follows metal, never the other way round
Fraudsters cannot accept this structure, so they argue, delay or disappear.
Each form of gold is produced, priced, tested and faked differently. The book explains all three in depth.
Natural gold from rivers and pits, sold by the gram by artisanal miners to licensed local buyers.
Main risks: brass filings, coated lead, black sand padding, switched samples.
Semi-pure gold-silver bars smelted at the mine, sold to refineries on payable metal less refining charges.
Main risks: fake assay certificates, inflated purity, phantom bars.
Good Delivery bars and kilobars with refiner’s marks, serial numbers and a chain of custody.
Main risks: gold-plated tungsten, copied hallmarks, fake vault receipts.
From the basics of purity and price to a step-by-step plan for your first safe purchase.
Troy ounces, karats and fineness, the LBMA Gold Price, doré settlements and Africa’s gold landscape.
What each form really is, who genuinely sells it, how it is documented and how it is faked.
The seven-stage script, tungsten bars, fee ladders, fake SKRs, the diplomatic box, forged papers, vault traps and fake buyers.
Field tests and their limits, ultrasonic and fire assay, ISO/IEC 17025 labs, umpire assays, OECD and LBMA standards.
Refinery delivery, contract clauses, payment structures, secure logistics, insurance and personal security.
Country snapshots, eight case files, an FAQ and a seven-phase plan for your first purchase.
Every genuine gold price in the world is linked to the LBMA Gold Price. Legal gold sells close to that price everywhere, because any licensed buyer or refinery will pay it.
The book shows you how to convert any offer into dollars per fine troy ounce and calculate the real discount in under a minute. Here is one example from the book.
| Step | Calculation | Result |
|---|---|---|
| The offer | 5 kg “23 carat” dust at US$55,000/kg | US$275,000 |
| Fine gold | 5,000 g × 958 ÷ 1,000 ÷ 31.1035 | 154.0 oz |
| Benchmark value | 154.0 oz × US$3,000 (illustrative) | US$462,000 |
| Implied discount | (462,000 − 275,000) ÷ 462,000 | ≈ 40% |
| Verdict | No legitimate seller accepts a 40% loss. This is a scam. | |
Prices in the book are illustrative; always use the live LBMA price on the day.
A bullion-and-hallmark design with worked calculations, counterfeit alerts, annotated fake documents and clear diagrams.
Copy them, adapt them and use them on every gold offer you receive.
Conversions, formulas, a quick value table and a worked comparison of two doré offers.
Warning signs grouped by offer, seller, gold, paperwork and money.
A due diligence record plus a supplier questionnaire to send to sellers.
What a genuine certificate contains, and what to check.
Title, sourcing, delivery, sampling, umpire, price formula and termination.
Ten boxes to tick before any money moves.
Key terms, and which test to use for dust, doré and bars.
What to do if you have been scammed, plus an evidence checklist.
Verify licences and assays, set your conditions, decline offers, report fraud.
Sourcing African gold without losing money to fake offers.
Looking for supply without buying tungsten, brass or smuggled gold.
Structuring doré and dust purchases that pass compliance.
Protect your clients, your commission and your reputation.
Show serious buyers you are genuine, and avoid fake buyers.
Do gold business back home the legal, safe way.
Kolawole King is the Chief Executive Officer of Augustina Impex Limited, a mineral sourcing and export company in Jos, Plateau State, the heart of Nigeria’s solid minerals belt. He works daily with miners, laboratories, inspectors, regulators and international buyers, with exports executed through licensed partner Jase Odus Nigeria Limited.
He founded the Augustina Impex Mining Academy, whose titles include How to Spot a Mineral Trade Scam, Conflict Minerals and Responsible Sourcing, Africa’s Critical Minerals, Coltan in Africa, Lithium Ore in Nigeria, Monazite Sand in Nigeria, Bastnäsite in Nigeria, From Pit to Port and Buying Minerals from Nigeria.
Kolawole KingChief Executive Officer, Augustina Impex Limited
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A 150-page A5 PDF that reads well on a phone, tablet or computer and prints cleanly.
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Yes. Each form has its own chapter covering how it is produced, its typical purity, who genuinely sells it, how it is priced, how it is faked and how to test it.
It explains what acid, magnets, scales and handheld XRF can and cannot detect, and why only internal testing and fire assay prove a lot. It shows you how to use accredited laboratories and refineries instead of relying on your eyes.
No. It covers African gold generally, with cautious snapshots of Ghana, Nigeria, the Sahel, South Africa, Tanzania, the DRC and Sudan. Always confirm current rules with official sources.
Yes. It explains what serious international buyers and refineries demand, and how fake buyers and fake refineries target honest miners and exporters.
All prices in the book are round illustrative figures used to teach the calculations. The book shows you how to apply the live LBMA Gold Price on the day you trade.
The case files and example documents are illustrative composites built from patterns that recur in the trade. Names and details are invented; the patterns are real.
See the full Augustina Impex Mining eBooks Library, including How to Spot a Mineral Trade Scam, Conflict Minerals and Responsible Sourcing and Buying Minerals from Nigeria.