I heard that they were coming up short on exercised gold contracts and were offering 25 percent premiums to settle in cash. The tungsten thing is pretty amazing. Not sure if it’s a govt scam or a private. It is a very difficult thing to pull off without some very sophisticated partners.
Gold coated tungsten bars could ONLY work between conspirators. At the level of trading gold bars, the fakery would be extremely easy to detect. Only in weight are gold and tungsten similar. In hardness, conductivity etc they are very disimilar, and those differences are simple to detect.