David Levenstein
Recently, I read an article about how Congo born, Dikembe Mutombo, an all-star NBA defender, was nicely scammed in a fake gold deal. Evidently, he and Houston based oil executive Kase Lawal were beguiled into believing that they could purchase around $30 million worth of the precious metal at a hugely discounted price to the prevailing global market price from dealers in the African country of Kenya. It just goes to show how even two intelligent men can be duped by what is such a common gold scam. I mean who wouldn't want to buy gold at a huge discount to the prevailing price, pick up the metal and then dump it onto some bullion dealer and get paid the market price thus making an absolute killing. This story inspired me to write about several common gold scams that have been around for a while and should be avoided. But, even though they may be well documented, there is a sucker born every minute. It is surprising how the lure of making quick easy money can fool any greedy, well intentioned individual.
In the case of Mutombo and Lawal, of course they never got a gram of gold and instead lost millions of dollars. The link to their entire story is here:
