The fake gem scam here in India is absolutely legendary
and today I'm going to show you a very very special version of it. These guys operate out of a tiny island on Asia's largest
saltwater lake surrounded by dolphins, surrounded by migratory birds. It is such a beautiful location, but
some of the locals here are screwing
foreigners and Indians with these fake gems. Let's go, let's grab a boat.
Let's get scammed and then let us find out how much of these gems are selling us really worth.
We're getting ready to go and find some dolphins and some birds that I'm here with Rakesh.
We're on the boat now and so the first part isn't really a scam but they are directing people away from the government boats.
They direct you before you get to Satpada to take a left and come here with the boats of really really expensive.
So I'm paying eighteen hundred rupees for this ride and the guide, you know
He's all friendly stuff when you think he's coming with you think you're getting a guide for that price
but you're not. He drops you on the boat and then he's Iike I gotta go. These drivers
are gonna take you. He's just a boat driver. He's not a guide.
So you don't even get a guide for that price and the drivers just stopped to get his lunch actually.
Someone is bringing him over a lunchbox, literally
walking with a
lunchbox across the water here.
And now you hear how much voice these motors are making, right?
It's so bad, the environment is so bad for the dolphins.
Imagine all these boats around the water just scaring the dolphins.
Yeah
This is where the scam starts.
They're gonna take me to a gem island kind of a place where they offer these fake gems.
Hey, How are you? Scammer: Don't you know Hindi?
Karl: Wow amazing. India is amazing.
Oh, there's no pearl. There's no pearl in that one. Where's the pearl man?
We want to see a pearl. Scammer: Oh, yeah, of course. Maybe you get a chance to observe it.
Yeah, here, here it is really unique extracting ethnicities.
Karl: Wow, wow man. It's very beautiful.
Scammer: It's a precious metal. It's called pearl.
Karl: Pearl. Wow take a photo of this.
Scammer: It is sold outside with much, so many
charges, but it is only six thousand Karl: only six Scammer: six hundred, six hundred
Karl: Ohh, six hundred. Scammer: Yes, six hundred only.
Karl: Okay, cool.
Yeah, yeah
Scammer: Would you like to have it one?
It is unique extracting are uncommon Karl: six hundred Scammer: six hundred only only six hundred.
You can't get it at the jewellery, with this type of price.
Yeah, yeah just observe it.
Scammer: These are natural so
Karl: Amazing! You can give me a discount for two.
We're on chilka lake and I just found two pearls.
Amazing! We're gonna buy them. Awesome. I can't believe how lucky we have been here in India.
You have more.
Scammer: Yeah,
Karl: Wow really smashing it, it is so hard to open.
Scammer: It is so hard that we have to smash it.
Karl: Wow!
Scammer: It is really a gem.
That was the previous one was pearl, but it is gem.
Whatever
Karl: See how beautiful this one is. Scammer: Yeah. Yeah. It is also transparent and as you know, is it less glittery, much transparent.
Karl: How much is this worth? Scammer: Yeah, two point five thousand two point five thousand. Karl: Wow, if I buy it outside
Scammer: Oh, no, no. If you can buy, if you want to buy outside it is it will about ten thousand, above 10,000 but from us it is sold for two point five thousand.
Karl: Wow, I can't believe how lucky we have been to find these amazing gems.
Scammer: Would like to have it?
I've run out of money, no money.
Scammer: Google pay? Would you like to pay
Karl: I'm a foreigner.
Scammer: Just have a look. Karl: No, no. I'm happy with my pearls and I like pearls.
Scammer: Just to have the look of Pukhraj. Karl:Oh, no, no more no more. Thank you.
1500?
Ok?
Thank You. Bye
We're back and
Actually don't come the Chilika Lake the way it's been polluted, the way it's been overfished, the way
the boats chase the dolphins around, it's depressing actually.
So yeah, I wouldn't recommend coming here.
Maybe the bird side of the lake is better because I hear that they don't use the motors there.
So maybe that's more peaceful. Maybe that's better regulated then the dolphin side of Chilika Lake is.
Anyway, let's go find a safe spot away from these guys and
talk about that scam. I couldn't talk about it on there because these damn motors are so freaking loud.
That was incredible. Literally the first place they took us to was the scam gem seller to extract more money from us
and actually I had to get out of the marina because the guy who sold me the package was just,
just harassing me for more money.
They want you to go to their shop and they want you to go eat now and all that anyway.
And so all they do is they get these oysters or clams,
they stuff these fake gems in and they just glue it and shut.
I picked one up and I could feel it was it was solid like it hadn't been opened
but they have opened it and they've literally just glued it shut again.
That is their trick and then they pretend to smash it out
like it's a brand new oyster or clam and on that boat I actually scams myself. That is a
freaking first and just proves that I can't do two things at once.
So the guy told me 600 per pearl, but I paid him 1,500.
I thought it was like 800 minus a hundred rupee discount.
So I managed to scam myself that as an all-time fail, but can only do one thing at a time
Film or bargain and the way he used Jagannath's name like that
like he's like long live Jagannath, like using religion during the scam to be like, oh well
I got blessed by finding this pearl like introducing religion through the scam like that, absolutely
unbelievable. So let's get on the bike and let's go and find a gem expert and find out exactly what we have and how much
they're worth.
So a funny thing just happened when I got off the boat, and I was vlogging,
a guy came up to me asked me 'Are you a journalist?' I'm like nah journalist and then within five minutes the tourist police
arrived there and
I thought about going up to them and like showing them the footage and being like do you know this gem scam is happening?
But then you got to think again.
Do the police want that footage to ever see the light of day because this is a jurisdiction, right?
They don't want to be you know shamed and maybe they're even taking some money from these guys.
Maybe that's why this scam has been running for so many years, right? So you got to think about that, too.
So I'll get sure to call the tourist police here and report the scam and see what they have to say about it actually.
That's the thing here like, in Odisha I don't feel like I can trust the police here because of everything I've read
about the Jagannath temple and how they've treated foreigners here in the past, deleting their drone footage and
taking them to the police station just for trying to
to enter the temple. They're very very
heavy-handed here. And one other point here is I'm a single
foreigner here, right? I don't know if anyone as a witness if something happens or if they delete my footage, right?
This.
I'm weak when I'm alone like this and they could just delete the footage and tell me to get lost and then what could I do?
Absolutely
nothing, but before we go calling the police to report this,
Let's just go and verify this is actually a scammer that these pearls are fake. Let's go.
I'm back here in Delhi now guys, and this video has taken quite the turn.
I took those two pearls to Chandni Chowk to the jewelry market there and I got two different jewellers to analyze them.
And guess what they're real, but they're really low-quality cultured or farmed pearls.
They're worth fifty rupees each,
not the six hundred rupees that that guy is charging people for and shall collect and I didn't buy the
Moonstone, which is a hundred percent fake. It's a rock. It doesn't come out of an oyster like that.
And actually there's a gemologist online on YouTube who's gone there and brought these gems and he confirms they're all fake.
I will link to his video in the description.
So the moral of this video is do not buy gems or precious stones
from someone on the street here in India from someone on a lake here in India.
They are not giving you a good price even though you know, that pearls are found on Chilika Lake.
You're not getting that wholesale price.
They are gonna rip you off and it's highly likely that what they are selling you is going to be fake.
Only buy gems, precious stones, gold all that kind of stuff from reputable
Jewelers. Okay, there is no such thing as a good deal out on the lake.
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