Chapter 614 - 5: Gold_3
Apart from safety considerations, the factory has an enticing benefit, which is a 70-year land use right, possibly added by the government since the factory couldn’t be sold otherwise.
However, because the location is poor and the old buildings have no utility value, demolishing the old buildings would also require money. Developers have better options just purchasing the land, so for many years, the factory has remained untouchable.
Chen Zhou had reviewed the factory sale conditions announced by the government. Though the government offered a price as high as 4.6 million, considering the overall area and usage period of the factory, it was still a pretty good deal for him.
After all, he wasn’t buying the factory for business profits but just to find a safe place to store his belongings, while staying away from the crowd, living alone.
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However, as excellent as the factory is, it was somewhat beyond Chen Zhou’s current financial reach.
After a simple calculation, he estimated he would need at least 12 million in cash to purchase the factory, complete subsequent repairs, renovations, and acquire safes, among other things.
And this amount of money would be too conspicuous for an ordinary man’s account like his.
According to the information Chen Zhou had gathered, short-term dispersion of funds, subsequent concentration, or sudden large flows of funds in dormant accounts, transaction patterns inconsistent with the cardholder’s profession or business scale, would all trigger the bank’s risk control systems, resulting in account freeze.
Then, the anti-money laundering department would step in, and the public security and tax departments would also launch a joint investigation.
The basic threshold for this large sum of funds starts at 200,000. If he sold a large amount of gold at once and had hundreds of thousands transferred to his bank card, there was a 100% chance of being investigated.
With such concerns, despite his unease with placing gold and silver elsewhere, he could only make do for a while, first buying a small house or warehouse to store them, and plan further once he found a cover-up method.
Otherwise, abnormally high income in the millions will undoubtedly trigger the bank’s risk control and anti-money laundering detection.
If it caught the police’s attention, no amount of explanation could suffice to clarify where so much gold and silver came from.
As for buying a small house or warehouse, Chen Zhou also wanted to be prudent, trying to have sellers transact in cash as much as possible.
Offline gold brand stores that recycle gold or gold ATMs certainly don’t support massive cash transactions. Selling large amounts of gold at such stores with deep ties to banks and police would cause unnecessary trouble, hence were the first to be struck off by Chen Zhou.
After much deliberation, he came up with three avenues—
Pawn shops, gold recycling companies, and antique stores.
Among them, antique stores offer an alternative approach.
Chen Zhou didn’t know if the large batch of 17th-century Gold Coins and Silver Coins, crafted with medieval techniques yet untouched by time, would be favored by Chinese antique enthusiasts, but he wanted to give it a try.
If he could offload part of the Gold Coins and Silver Coins through this channel, scoring a few hundred thousand in cash, he’d have his initial startup capital to find more suitable ways to settle his treasures.
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Studying how to monetize the gold into the early hours until dawn broke, Chen Zhou finally fell asleep with hopes for the future.
Before sleeping, he took out 4 James I Gold Coins, 10 one-shilling Silver Coins, and two self-cast gold bars weighing about 500 grams, and purchased tickets to the city.
He wanted to visit the city’s Gold Recycling Company to see the specific market situation and process.
Alongside, he planned to explore the antique store owner’s tone, wade into the waters, to see if he might find other routes.
If he could sell gold at the price of antiques, not only would he make more, but he could also liquidate it in a less conspicuous way.
The antique market is inherently gray, especially in the realm of old coins.
Every currency enthusiast can hardly explain if their old coins were obtained by grave-digging or passed down through generations.
If the police pursued these people seriously, the entire antique world might not be able to continue developing.