DISCLAIMER: GoldInvestors.news is not a registered investment, legal or tax advisor or broker/dealer. All investment/financial opinions expressed by GoldInvestors.news are from the personal research and experience of the owner of the site and are intended as educational material. Although best efforts are made to ensure that all information is accurate and up to date, occasionally unintended errors and misprints may occur.

A growing investment fraud has persuaded several bank customers in Norway to buy gold and leave it in forested areas, according to the country’s banking lobby. Finans Norge disclosed the scheme in a statement Thursday and said banks are specifically warning customers about it.

The pitch described by the group combines an investment in physical gold with an instruction to place the purchased metal outdoors. Customers were promised that other people would look after it while its value increased, the lobby said.

“Several” bank clients have spent “large sums” to purchase the gold, according to Finans Norge. Those clients then left the metal “out in nature” after being told that “others will keep it safe while the value rises.”

The organization did not specify how much individual clients spent or provide a combined total for the gold purchases. Its description of the financial commitment was limited to the phrase “large sums,” leaving the precise size of the scheme undisclosed.

Finans Norge described the gold arrangement as part of a growing investment fraud. The warning highlights a scheme in which victims not only commit money to the promised investment, but also surrender practical control over the physical asset by leaving it outdoors.

The gold scheme is one of three fraud methods that banks are “specifically warning against right now,” according to the statement. Finans Norge did not attach separate financial figures to the gold purchases in its Thursday announcement.

The banking lobby also released broader figures showing the financial damage caused by fraud in Norway last year. Losses sustained by Norwegian lenders and their customers reached 962 million kroner, an amount equivalent to $100 million.

Those reported losses cover financial fraud generally, rather than only the scheme involving gold left in nature. Finans Norge did not state how much of the 962 million kroner total, if any, was connected specifically to clients buying and depositing gold outdoors.

Banks also stopped attempted fraud representing a substantially larger amount than the losses ultimately recorded. According to the lobby group, lenders prevented fraud attempts totaling more than 3.5 billion kroner during the same year.

The 962 million kroner figure represents losses suffered by both lenders and their customers. The separate total of more than 3.5 billion kroner reflects attempted fraud that banks prevented, according to the figures supplied by Finans Norge.

The statement therefore presents two distinct measures of the threat facing banks and their clients. One captures money lost to financial fraud, while the other records the value of fraud attempts that lenders successfully blocked before those attempts produced losses.

Against those nationwide totals, the forest gold scheme remains described only through the number of affected clients and the general size of their purchases. The lobby said “several” customers were involved, but offered no more precise count.

The warning also makes clear that actual gold purchases took place. The bank clients spent money to acquire the metal and subsequently followed instructions to leave it in nature, relying on promises that others would keep it secure.

Finans Norge’s account centers on the assurance that the gold would be protected while appreciating in value. The statement did not quantify any increase in value, and its disclosed figures concerned overall fraud losses and prevented attempts rather than investment returns.

The unusual gold arrangement now sits among three methods drawing specific warnings from Norwegian banks. With lenders and customers losing 962 million kroner to financial fraud last year, the banking lobby’s figures show the costly setting in which the forest scheme has emerged.

DISCLAIMER: GoldInvestors.news is not a registered investment, legal or tax advisor or broker/dealer. All investment/financial opinions expressed by GoldInvestors.news are from the personal research and experience of the owner of the site and are intended as educational material. Although best efforts are made to ensure that all information is accurate and up to date, occasionally unintended errors and misprints may occur.