Trader Buys $36 Million of Copper and Gets Painted Rocks Instead
- Commodities trader Mercuria says it is the victim of fraud
- Thieves in Turkey switched painted paving stones for copper
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Commodities trader Mercuria Energy Group Ltd. struck a deal last summer to buy $36 million of copper from a Turkish supplier. But when the cargoes started arriving in China, all it found were containers full of painted rocks.
The saga unfolds like a gangland thriller, with the Swiss trading house saying it’s been the victim of cargo fraud. Before its journey from a port near Istanbul to China even began, about 6,000 tons of blister copper in more than 300 containers were switched with jagged paving stones, spray-painted to resemble the semi-refined metal.