Afternoon everyone….
Today I’m going to share a beautiful vintage silver round from The Northwest Territorial Mint. This Ming was involved in quite a scandal. More on that in a few…..
The company started off as a medal designer and producer for governments, businesses, school and more. They were made from many metals including bronze, brass, silver, gold, copper, pewter and more.
Their success in that industry, made them expand into a precious metals dealer. Which they were very successful for decades. Until……..
Greed took over…..
They had several location in the Northwest, two in Washington state, while their main production site was Nevada. They because one of the larger bullion dealers in the late 90’s and early 2000’s.
They started offering bullion vaults to their customers. This is where they keep the bullion “that you purchase” in their vault for you at a charge.
Well……
This only works if the bullion actually makes it to the vault that you purchased. Unfortunately that was not the case. They were using the funds for personal expenses and in 2015 were finally caught. They went on trial in 2016.
Here is an article on it:
Seattle –The former President & CEO of Northwest Territorial Mint, a now-bankrupt company dealing in precious metals, was sentenced today in U.S. District Court in Seattle to 11 years in prison for 14 federal felonies resulting from a Ponzi-like scheme that defrauded customers of millions of dollars, announced U.S. Attorney Nick Brown. Bernard Ross Hansen, 61, aka Ross B. Hansen was convicted of multiple counts of wire and mail fraud after a four-week jury trial in July 2021. Hansen’s co-defendant and partner, Vault Manager Diane Renee Erdmann, 49, was convicted of 13 counts of wire fraud and mail fraud. She was sentenced to five years in prison. This was the second scheduled sentencing hearing for the two after they failed to show up for their late April court date and attempted to flee.
At the sentencing hearing U.S. District Judge Richard A. Jones said, “The entire means of operation was nothing more than a fiction…. You were a wrecking ball building your empire. (The victims) trusted you and had faith in the snake oil you were selling; that faith was met with manipulation and deceit.”
“Mr. Hansen and Ms. Erdman defrauded more than 3,000 people of some $30 million – money that represents the victims’ plans and dreams: retirement, college funds, and inheritances,” said U.S. Attorney Nick Brown. “It is heartbreaking to hear how the fraud upended their lives and left them working longer, harder, and in deep stress to try to recover. The impact of this fraud goes beyond the significant dollar figure.”
Northwest Territorial Mint (NWTM) operated both a custom business that involved the manufacturing of medallions and other awards, and a bullion business that involved the selling, buying, exchanging, storing, and leasing of gold, silver, and other precious metals. The company had offices in Federal Way and Auburn, Washington, but declared bankruptcy on April 1, 2016.
According to records in the case and testimony at trial, Hansen and Erdmann defrauded NWTM customers in a variety of ways. The evidence at trial showed that Hansen and Erdmann lied about shipping times for bullion, used customer money to expand the business to other states, and to pay their own personal expenses. As a result, the company lacked enough assets to fulfill customer orders and used new customer money to pay off older customers in a Ponzi-like scheme. In total, over 2500 customers paid for orders, or made bullion sales or exchanges, that were either never fulfilled or never refunded. The total loss to these customers was more than $25,000,000.
What scumbags….
But they made a quality round. And here it is….