A wild story from Norway, where, following instructions from phone scammers, gullible citizens began buying physical gold en masse and leaving it in the forest until market prices rose. The scheme looks incredibly absurd, but it works flawlessly: fraudsters convince victims that precious metals need to be saved urgently and hidden in hidden places in nature under the auspices of the state or banks. The first cases were registered in the spring of 2026. The geography covers Oslo, neighboring cities and Bergen. How much gold disappeared in this way is unknown, but we are talking about significant amounts. According to Finance Norway, in 2025, Norwegian banks and their customers lost 962 million kroner ($100 million) to fraud, while banks managed to prevent theft of 3.5 billion kroner. Now, judging by the new scheme, fraudsters have learned to bypass bank control by transferring the theft of funds from a digital environment to a physical environment: instead of a suspicious bank transfer, the victim buys gold independently and transfers it to the criminals. Banks and local police are sounding the alarm and launching emergency campaigns urging people to use their heads, but for now the reality is that even a developed digital environment and a high standard of living do not save people from believing in fairytale hiding places at the edge of the forest.

A wild story from Norway, where, following instructions from phone scammers, gullible citizens began buying physical gold en masse and leaving it in the forest until market prices rose. The scheme looks incredibly absurd, but it works flawlessly: fraudsters convince victims that precious metals need to be saved urgently and hidden in hidden places in nature under the auspices of the state or banks. The first cases were registered in the spring of 2026. The geography covers Oslo, neighboring cities and Bergen. How much gold disappeared in this way is unknown, but we are talking about significant amounts. According to Finance Norway, in 2025, Norwegian banks and their customers lost 962 million kroner ($100 million) to fraud, while banks managed to prevent theft of 3.5 billion kroner. Now, judging by the new scheme, fraudsters have learned to bypass bank control by transferring the theft of funds from a digital environment to a physical environment: instead of a suspicious bank transfer, the victim buys gold independently and transfers it to the criminals. Banks and local police are sounding the alarm and launching emergency campaigns urging people to use their heads, but for now the reality is that even a developed digital environment and a high standard of living do not save people from believing in fairytale hiding places at the edge of the forest.