E-Bullion

Last updated May 11, 2023

e-Bullion was an Internet-based digital gold currency founded by Jim and Pamela Fayed of Moorpark, California, as part of their Goldfinger Coin & Bullion group of companies. The company was incorporated in 2000 and launched on July 4, 2001. Similar to competing systems such as e-gold, e-Bullion allowed for the instant transfer of gold and silver between user accounts. e-Bullion was a registered legal corporate entity of Panama.

In 2008, co-founder, Pamela Fayed, was murdered, leading to the indictment, trial and conviction of her husband Jim Fayed for hiring her murder. Fayed was sentenced to death, and is currently on death row in California. As a result of the murder, the U.S. Government seized all of the assets of e-Bullion, resulting in the closure of the company in August 2008.

Features

E-Bullion simply provided a way for users to hold and transfer balances in gold and silver. The company also offered a debit card to U.S. customers, which enabled them to convert their bullion balances to USD and withdraw at an automated teller machine (ATM) or use it for debit purchases.

e-Bullion provided its own in-house currency exchange service through Goldfinger Coin & Bullion, Inc. An e-Bullion account could be funded directly via wire transfer from a bank account.
e-Bullion was the first DGC to issue a debit card linked to an account.
e-Bullion was the first DGC to use CRYPTOCard security tokens to protect user accounts from unauthorized access.
Goldfinger Bullion Reserve Corporation, a sister company of e-Bullion, held the precious metals in bullion storage vaults located in Los Angeles, and at the Perth Mint in Australia.

2008 Murder of e-Bullion Principal

The Fayeds had a troubled marriage which eventually led to divorce proceedings. During the divorce proceedings the Fayeds disputed over the partition of ownership of the Goldfinger companies, including e-Bullion.

On Monday July 28, 2008 Jim Fayed's estranged wife Pamela Fayed was stabbed to death^[1] in a parking structure at 1875 Century Park East in Century City, California. The crime occurred at 6:30PM in daylight and was overheard by numerous people who responded to the victim's screams. A surveillance camera recorded enough details for a rental car to be identified by license plate and for a suspect description to be announced.^[2] She was due to appear that day in one of several ongoing legal meetings in her divorce from Jim Fayed and was reportedly attempting to stop him from moving or hiding some of the joint assets involved in e-Bullion. As of 4 August 2008^[update] Fayed was in United States federal custody facing felony charges of conducting unlicensed money transactions via e-Bullion. Federal authorities seized $60,000 in cash, $24,000,000 in gold bullion and a credit card that allegedly was used to pay for the rental car that fled from the murder scene.^[3]

Fayed was prosecuted for capital murder, was found guilty at trial by a jury, and sentenced to death. He is currently imprisoned on death row in California.

The e-Bullion website was taken down on August 5, 2008. After the site was taken down, it became a simple mirror for this present Wikipedia article. Court papers filed by James Fayed as part of his divorce proceedings indicate that normal website operations would be impossible without his active oversight and direction.^[4]

After the arrest of Fayed, the US Attorney unsealed an indictment of e-Bullion and Goldfinger Coin & Bullion for failure to have a money transmitter license under the USA PATRIOT Act. Although the charges against the corporations were eventually dropped, the US Attorney's Office seized all of the assets of the Goldfinger companies, including the bullion backing e-Bullion.com from the Perth Mint and the Fayed's ranch in California. e-Bullion account holders have not been compensated by the U.S. Government for the confiscation of the bullion backing their accounts.

Related Research Articles

In economics, cash is money in the physical form of currency, such as banknotes and coins.

e-gold was a digital gold currency operated by Gold & Silver Reserve Inc. (G&SR) that allowed users to open an account on their web site denominated in grams of gold, or other precious metals, and that let users make instant transfers of value ("spends") to other e-gold accounts. The e-gold system was launched in 1996 and had grown to five million accounts by 2009, when transfers were suspended due to legal issues. At its peak in 2006, e-gold was processing more than US$2 billion worth of transactions per year, on a monetary base of US$71 million worth of gold. e-gold Ltd. was incorporated in Nevis, Saint Kitts and Nevis with operations conducted out of Florida, USA.

Bullion is non-ferrous metal that has been refined to a high standard of elemental purity. The term is ordinarily applied to bulk metal used in the production of coins and especially to precious metals such as gold and silver. It comes from the Anglo-Norman term for a melting-house where metal was refined, and earlier from French bouillon, "boiling". Although precious metal bullion is no longer used to make coins for general circulation, it continues to be held as an investment with a reputation for stability in periods of economic uncertainty. To assess the purity of gold bullion, the centuries-old technique of fire assay is still employed, together with modern spectroscopic instrumentation, to accurately determine its quality.

A financial transaction is an agreement, or communication, between a buyer and seller to exchange goods, services, or assets for payment. Any transaction involves a change in the status of the finances of two or more businesses or individuals. A financial transaction always involves one or more financial asset, most commonly money or another valuable item such as gold or silver.

Digital gold currency is a form of electronic money based on mass units of gold. It is a kind of representative money, like a US paper gold certificate at the time that these were exchangeable for gold on demand. The typical unit of account for such currency is linked to grams or troy ounces of gold, although other units such as the gold dinar are sometimes used. DGCs are backed by gold through unallocated or allocated gold storage.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Liberty dollar (private currency)</span> Private currency produced in the United States

The American Liberty Dollar (ALD) was a private currency produced in the United States.

Executive Order 6102 is an executive order signed on April 5, 1933, by US President Franklin D. Roosevelt "forbidding the hoarding of gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates within the continental United States." The executive order was made under the authority of the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917, as amended by the Emergency Banking Act in March 1933.

The Brink's-Mat robbery occurred at the Heathrow International Trading Estate, London, United Kingdom, on 26 November 1983 and was one of the largest robberies in British history. £26 million worth of gold bullion, diamonds, and cash was stolen from a warehouse operated by Brink's-Mat, a former joint venture between US security company Brink's and London-based company MAT Transport. The bullion was the property of Johnson Matthey Bankers Ltd. Micky McAvoy and Brian Robinson were convicted of armed robbery. Most of the gold has never been recovered. Lloyd's of London paid out for the losses, and several shooting deaths have been linked to the case.

Digital currency is any currency, money, or money-like asset that is primarily managed, stored or exchanged on digital computer systems, especially over the internet. Types of digital currencies include cryptocurrency, virtual currency and central bank digital currency. Digital currency may be recorded on a distributed database on the internet, a centralized electronic computer database owned by a company or bank, within digital files or even on a stored-value card.

Of all the precious metals, gold is the most popular as an investment. Investors generally buy gold as a way of diversifying risk, especially through the use of futures contracts and derivatives. The gold market is subject to speculation and volatility as are other markets. Compared to other precious metals used for investment, gold has been the most effective safe haven across a number of countries.

A cryptocurrency exchange, or a digital currency exchange (DCE), is a business that allows customers to trade cryptocurrencies or digital currencies for other assets, such as conventional fiat money or other digital currencies. Exchanges may accept credit card payments, wire transfers or other forms of payment in exchange for digital currencies or cryptocurrencies. A cryptocurrency exchange can be a market maker that typically takes the bid–ask spreads as a transaction commission for its service or, as a matching platform, simply charges fees.

1mdc was a digital gold currency (DGC) that existed from 2001 to 2007 in which users traded digital currency backed by reserves of e-gold, rather than physical bullion reserves.

A private currency is a currency issued by a private entity, be it an individual, a commercial business, a nonprofit or decentralized common enterprise. It is often contrasted with fiat currency issued by governments or central banks. In many countries, the issuance of private paper currencies and/or the minting of metal coins intended to be used as currency may even be a criminal act such as in the United States. Digital cryptocurrency is sometimes treated as an asset instead of a currency. Cryptocurrency is illegal as a currency in a few countries.

Silver may be used as an investment like other precious metals. It has been regarded as a form of money and store of value for more than 4,000 years, although it lost its role as legal tender in developed countries when the use of the silver standard came to a final end in 1935. Some countries mint bullion and collector coins, however, such as the American Silver Eagle with nominal face values. In 2009, the main demand for silver was for industrial applications (40%), jewellery, bullion coins, and exchange-traded products. In 2011, the global silver reserves amounted to 530,000 tonnes.

The Bank of St Helena is a government-owned bank based in the British Overseas Territory of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha. It operates branches on St Helena and Ascension Island. The Government of St. Helena owns 100% of the bank and operates it as a parastatal. The governor appoints the board of directors. The bank holds deposits of around SHP 73.2 million. On the asset side, lending accounts for SHP 16.5 million, and SHP 56.5 million is invested.

The Central Bank of Kosovo is the central bank of Kosovo. It was founded in June 2008, the same year Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia, with the approval of Law No. 03/L-074 on the Central Bank of the Republic of Kosovo by the Kosovo Assembly. Before being established as the Central Bank of Kosovo, it operated as the Central Banking Authority of Kosovo. The official currency in Kosovo is the euro, which has been adopted unilaterally in 2002; however, Kosovo is not a member of the Eurozone. The headquarters of the CBK are located in the capital of Kosovo, Pristina.

The United States dollar is the official currency of the United States and several other countries. The Coinage Act of 1792 introduced the U.S. dollar at par with the Spanish silver dollar, divided it into 100 cents, and authorized the minting of coins denominated in dollars and cents. U.S. banknotes are issued in the form of Federal Reserve Notes, popularly called greenbacks due to their predominantly green color.

Goldline, LLC was a retail seller of gold and silver coins, and other precious metals for investors and collectors. Goldline traced its formation to a Deak & Co. subsidiary created in 1960, a firm that in the late 1970s was the largest storefront gold retailer and later went into bankruptcy in the 1980s. The company was later bought and sold several times in the ensuing years. The company sold its assets to A-Mark Precious Metals, Inc. in August 2017.

Liberty Reserve was a Costa Rica-based centralized digital currency service that billed itself as the "oldest, safest and most popular payment processor, serving millions all around a world". The site had over one million users when it was shut down by the United States government. Prosecutors argued that due to lax security, alleged criminal activity largely went undetected, which ultimately led to them seizing the service.

International Gold Bullion Exchange was a gold bullion dealer that committed major fraud during the early 1980s.

References

↑ "The Homicide Report". 12 July 2008.
↑ "Victim had bitter divorce". Los Angeles Times . 30 July 2008.
↑ "Car may link man to wife's fatal stabbing". Los Angeles Times . 5 August 2008.
↑ "Court papers indicate James Fayed had absolute control over e-Bullion | the Industry Standard". Archived from the original on 2008-08-14. Retrieved 2008-08-13.

External links

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[1] "The Homicide Report". 12 July 2008.

[2] "Victim had bitter divorce". Los Angeles Times . 30 July 2008.

[3] "Car may link man to wife's fatal stabbing". Los Angeles Times . 5 August 2008.

[4] "Court papers indicate James Fayed had absolute control over e-Bullion | the Industry Standard". Archived from the original on 2008-08-14. Retrieved 2008-08-13.

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]