Major Banks and Traders Fooled by Fake Nickel Scams
Trafigura and other companies received bags of stones instead of nickel from a warehouse in Rotterdam run by Access World. The mix-up was discovered after the bags were shipped to New Orleans and found to have the wrong weight. The London Metal Exchange inspected all of its metal holdings at the warehouse and found that nine contracts contained material other than nickel. Trafigura faces a $577 million loss due to an unrelated fraud on nickel shipments.