A GOLD ingot for a pair of earrings and some money sounded like a good deal to a Longgang woman, surnamed Huang. She was the latest victim of a scam a group was running near a market in Buji Subdistrict in Longgang District.

    Longgang police recently busted the 14-person fraud ring that allegedly tricked elderly people into exchanging goods for fake gold ingots. The group tricked over 20 people and made hundreds of thousands of yuan from victims.

    Huang told police that she was cheated out of a pair of gold earrings plus 2,000 yuan (US$314) in cash by two unknown women Friday morning in front of a market in Buji.

    Huang, in her late 50s, was shopping in the market when the two women approached her to talk. According to Huang, the two women said they worked at a nearby construction site.

    After a while, one of the women took a “gold ingot” out of her shopping bag and claimed that she had found it at her work site.

    She also told Huang that she and her friend needed to leave their jobs because their boss was trying to take away the gold piece.

    The woman said that without money they wouldn’t be able to get back to their hometown.

    Huang checked the “gold ingot,” noticing mud on it as well as on the two women’s shoes, which made her believe that the gold was really from the ground and had just been dug out.

    The two women asked Huang to help them get back home by leaving the “gold ingot” with her temporarily. In return, Huang needed to give the two women something as collateral for the gold piece.

    Huang thought it was a good deal and gave a pair of gold earrings and 2,000 yuan to the two women.

    Huang’s family took the “gold ingot” to a jewelry store and found it was made of tumbaga, a mixture of copper and gold, and it was worth less than 100 yuan. Huang called the police afterwards.

    Police officers from Luogang Police Station waited at the market beginning at 5 a.m. Monday. After two hours of waiting, police detained eight suspects and found another six in a nearby rented apartment.

    The police said all 14 suspects were from Jiangxi Province. The group wandered around the market in pairs in the early morning every day with fake gold pieces and looked for vulnerable residents, especially elderly women.

    Further investigation is underway. (Zhang Qian)