In July we posted about the discovery of the wreck of the Russian armored cruiser, Dmitrii Donskoi, off South Korea. The salvors claimed that the ship may contain 200 tons of gold, which would they said may be worth around $133.4 billion (£102bn) in today’s prices. It now appears that, while the wreck of the Russian cruiser is real enough, the claims of treasure may be part of an elaborate cryptocurrency scam.
The salvage was being backed by the Shinil Group, which apparently also has ties to a new Singapore based cryptocurrency venture, Shinil Gold Coins.
CoinTelegraph.com reports: To encourage investors to purchase the company’s own cryptocurrency, Shinil allegedly promised to reimburse them with the gold from the ship. The coin reportedly attracted 60 billion won ($53.7 million) in investments from around 100,000 investors since its launch this year, even though the company’s CEO Choi Yong-seok has admitted there is no clear evidence that the ship contained anything of value.
Seoul’s Gangseo District Police subsequently issued a travel ban on Choi and are reportedly planning to question him and other parties related to the investigation. As per Korea JoongAng Daily, the investment scam also involved Yu Ji-beom, head of a Singapore-based affiliate of Shinil Group.
The Shinil Group’s website is down and the Shinil Gold Coin cryptocurrency project seems to have vanished. The initial video of the shipwreck has also been deleted from YouTube.
The initial claims always seemed doubtful. The math doesn’t work. As we noted in our previous post, even if there is a cache of 200 tonnes of gold aboard, the valuation of $133.4 billion looks highly suspicious. At a current gold price of around $1,230 per ounce, the value of 200 metric tonnes would be around $8.7 billion, not over $130 billion. Basic math aside, there is no evidence that the Imperial Russian Navy saw fit to put 200 tonnes of gold aboard a lightly armored commerce raider.
Dmitrii Donskoi was scuttled in 1905 during the Russo-Japanese War following the Battle of Tsushima. The wreck was found in 1,400 feet of water about one mile off the South Korean island of Ulleungdo.