They took deliberate actions to ensure this didn't get out." But once they found it, they knew what they were doing. "It happened in the first place because of poor systems management and incompetence on the refining side. "Potentially you'll get gold buyers in the market going, 'Can we trust anything coming out of the Perth Mint? Including coins, bullion, anything?'," the insider says. The longer-term damage to the mint's reputation stands to be far greater. The mint agreed certificates of assay would accompany all bars sent to the SGE in the future. In the end the SGE chose not to make its complaint public and accepted assurances around quality from the mint. It said its refining methods had been enhanced since late 2021 and it was now committed to higher purity standards than the industry average. Perth Mint confirmed it did receive a customer complaint about a small number of 1kg gold bars but that, "due to Chinese government restrictions on exporting gold from China, the customer did not return the bars … and therefore the customer's concerns could not be verified". He did not respond to Four Corners' questions or a request for an interview. In the same week as this crisis was unfolding behind closed doors at the Perth Mint, it was announced that Mr Hayes would be retiring early due to illness. "If they've … traded bars through the SGE that are non-compliant, they'd lose their accreditation." WA Premier Mark McGowan had ministerial responsibility for the mint for four years until March 2021. It is the only mint in the world that has a government guarantee.īut in recent years the 124-year-old institution, officially known as Gold Corporation, has been plagued by a series of scandals. Last year alone it sold $20.3 billion in gold. The mint is the largest processor of newly mined gold in the world, one of Perth's top tourist attractions and well known for producing commemorative coins to mark everything from royal weddings to a new James Bond film. "I don't know if I've ever seen one this big," they say. One Perth Mint insider, who asked not to be named as they could face five years' jail if their identity is revealed, says it is a "scandal of the highest level". While the gold remained above broader industry standards, the report estimated up to 100 tonnes of gold sent to Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE) potentially did not comply with Shanghai's strict purity standards for silver content. Four Corners has uncovered documents charting the WA government-owned mint's decision to begin "doping" its gold in 2018, and then how it withheld evidence from its largest client in an effort to protect its reputation.
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