I am looking for a story about how people make a replica of a coin and its resulted finding this story of Canada Maple leaf scam. This can be happening to any coin collector around the world and a great read to make use aware of this kind of scam. This Maple Leaf scam happened in the United States. They're called as a "million-dollar gold coin scam" involving counterfeit versions of the Royal Canadian Mint's famous one-ounce Maple Leaf coin.
Using a few genuine Maple Leaf gold coins and hundreds of fakes, the suspects are alleged to have enticed jewelry store owners into buying significant numbers of counterfeit coins. Merchants were typically offered a cut-rate deal for a large shipment of coins after being given one or two real ones for authentication. In March, a jeweller in Red Bank, N.J., was drawn into a deal to acquire 100 of the Canadian coins, that have a symbolic face value of $50 but are currently selling for about $1,000 each. The jeweller was given a single Maple Leaf coin for testing and agreed to pay cash for the entire collection, which the seller claimed he'd received as an inheritance.
A week after the initial meeting, the seller and an associate arrived to complete the transaction, but when the jeweller questioned the authenticity of the 99 other coins delivered by the pair, one of the suspects "pulled out a black handgun and demanded the cash," according to an account of the heist released by New Jersey prosecutor Robert Bianchi. The pattern was repeated at various jewelry stores in New Jersey, and investigators discovered similar attempts at executing the Canadian coin "confidence scam" in New York and Maryland.
Three suspects who had been under surveillance were arrested on Sept. 19 at a shopping mall in Kinnelon, N.J. The car in which the three had driven to the mall was searched by police, who found 200 counterfeit Maple Leaf gold coins. Three men in their 50s — David Bell, William Gary and Hakim Shaheed, all New Jersey residents — face initial charges of theft by deception and conspiracy.
Source: Vancouver Sun
