"Copper Isotope" a scam?

October 24, 2008 12:19 PM

Is buying and selling huge quantities of "Copper Isotope" a scam, or is it a legitamate business?

Strange question, but here goes...

I have an in-law who is a classic schemer/networker/get-rich-quick dreamer.

He's actually very well connected - he's spent years in the international telecomm and commercial real-estate businesses, and seems to know a lot of "very important people."

Of course, any time he gets involved in a new scheme, I get asked for my opinion (I'm the reasonable, conservative, skeptic).

Long story short - apparently, he has a contact in Russia who is acting as the representative for someone interesting in selling several thousand kilograms of "copper isotope."

The Russian rep contacted my in-law, hoping that he might be able to help him connect with a potential buyer. Apparently, my in-law has "contacts" with Swiss metal traders who might be interested.

The stunning thing - supposedly, this isotope is worth several thousand $US per GRAM, making the entire quantity worth BILLIONS.

I know, I know - sounds like a Nigerian scam. But, giving my in-law's past schemes, there's actually some likelihood that part, if not all, of this is true. And it's certainly piqued my interest.

Of course, I googled "Copper Isotope", but it's suprisingly hard to find out anything about it.

Is this a classic scam? Is "Copper Isotope" dangerous/illegal/valuable/worthless? Is there any possibility that this is legit, or should he run away from these "contacts" as fast as he can?

Many thanks for any insight.

posted by stuehler to Law & Government (19 answers total)

Well, there's only two stable copper isotopes, Cu 63 and Cu 65. All the other isotopes have half-lives in the hours or less. In nature, apparently 69% of copper is Cu 63, while 31% is Cu 65.

Therefore, I would say that the copper isotopes that ARE rare won't be anything that people would want to buy, since by the time they get shipped to the customer, they'll have decayed.
Meanwhile the only two isotopes that aren't so godawful unstable are pretty damn common, so nobody'd want to buy them.

He's going to get fleeced.
posted by dunkadunc at 12:30 PM on October 24, 2008 [2 favorites]

How much is the Russian willing to sell it for? If it's less than the BILLIONS that it would otherwise be "worth," then I don't see how it could possibly *not* be a scam. If it's worth BILLIONS, why wouldn't the Russian sell it for BILLIONS to the people who normally buy it?
posted by Juffo-Wup at 12:30 PM on October 24, 2008

No part of this story gives me any indication it's legitimate, but I don't know your brother-in-law or how he came to acquire these "contacts."

Any time someone offers a deal worth large sums of money, across multiple international borders, for relatively little work, that's going to sound a lot like some kind of scam. The question is, what does your BIL bring to the table that's worth a cut of a billion-dollar deal? Are his contacts that good that he can serve as a middleman (in the internet age) between the apparently unique supplier and apparently unique buyer of an enormously valuable commodity? How is it that the buyer and seller don't already know about each other? How you your BIL form these relationships with them? Do they have some kind of proven track record?

If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
posted by mikewas at 12:31 PM on October 24, 2008

The term "copper isotope" isn't a properly formatted description of a chemical substance. Which isotope? Some radioactive copper isotopes are used in nuclear medicine, but they have to be produced on-site (in a cyclotron), since they decay so quickly.
posted by mr_roboto at 12:33 PM on October 24, 2008

According to wikipedia's page on copper isotopes, the longest-lived radioisotope has a half life of just under 62 hours. Of the two stable isotopes, it's about a 60/40 split in nature, so it's not like either one is particularly rare.

Sounds like a big ol' scam to me, unless he's got some very rapid shipping technologies.
posted by jenkinsEar at 12:34 PM on October 24, 2008 [1 favorite]

Find me a legitimate website in this result set (or this)and I'll send you an e-quarter.
posted by rhizome at 12:36 PM on October 24, 2008

Scam.

This Sounds similar. You're looking at the new evolution of Nigerian scams.
"I'm sitting on BILLIONS of DOLLARS worth of INSERT ITEM HERE, but I strangely can't leverage any of that worth to pay for my the Fedex charges to send you the cheque, would you mind sending over AMOUNT TO WHICH I THINK YOU'RE GULLABLE to allow yourself to become extremely rich.

It has never occured to me to sell a tiny amount of INSERT ITEM HERE to gain enough money so I can complete the deal and make myself incredibly rich, rather the giving half of the BILLIONS of DOLLARS to you."
posted by Static Vagabond at 12:43 PM on October 24, 2008

Response by poster: All,

I appreciate all the responses, and I definitely share everyone's extreme skepticism. My inclination is definitely to advise him to not get involved in any way.

I was hoping for some unambiguous, indisputable problem: e.g.,

- "the only valuable isotopes are radioisotopes, which have a maximum half-life of 62 hours; the stable isotopes are only worth a few dollars/kg"

- "it is against Swiss/Russian/etc. national law to import/export copper isotopes"

- "there is a very active, liquid, transparent commodity market in Zurich for trading such materials. No reputable buyer/seller would depend on informal contacts to execute such a deal"

- etc.

The only reason I haven't dismissed the notion outright is that it wouldn't be the most outlandish scheme he successfully managed to pull off. So, you never know...

Anyway, thanks again!
posted by stuehler at 12:52 PM on October 24, 2008

"I know, I know - sounds like a Nigerian scam. But, giving my in-law's past schemes, there's actually some likelihood that part, if not all, of this is true."

Just because your brother has had good luck in the past does not mean that he will have good with this one. Good investors know not only the potential rewards, but are also acutely aware of the risks. If he can somehow give a good explanation as to why everyone upthread is wrong (and why people are buying copper isotopes, and how they're still 'good' when they arrive, and why the Russians singled him out...), then great; otherwise, I think his past successes might be blinding him to the fact that this deal makes no sense and sounds an awful lot like a scam.
posted by fogster at 12:59 PM on October 24, 2008

Sorry, should have previewed; my reply isn't that helpful on the heels of yours. Still, I hope it helps.
posted by fogster at 1:00 PM on October 24, 2008

The biggest reason this screams scam to me is there just isn't any chemical substance that can be accurately described as "copper isotope." You would have to specify what isotope of copper you mean. Further as mentioned by dunkadunc above, the stable isotopes of copper aren't worth anything close to that. So that's pretty close to the unambiguous, indisputable problem you seek:
"the only valuable isotopes are radioisotopes, which have a maximum half-life of 62 hours; the stable isotopes are only worth a few dollars/kg"

Also:
The only reason I haven't dismissed the notion outright is that it wouldn't be the most outlandish scheme he successfully managed to pull off. So, you never know...

Having gotten lucky once is a poor indicator of continued good luck.
posted by peacheater at 1:11 PM on October 24, 2008

Response by poster: I should know enough about rudimentary chemistry to understand this article and table, but I don't:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotopes_of_copper

"Copper (Cu) has two stable isotopes, 63Cu and 65Cu, along with numerous radioisotopes. The vast majority of radioisotopes have half lives on the order of minutes or less; the longest lived, 67Cu, has a half life of 61.8 hours."

Does this mean that approximately 69% of all naturally occuring copper is 63Cu, and 31% is 65Cu?

If so, can I infer than 63Cu and 65Cu couldn't POSSIBLY be valuable?

(According to Bloomberg.com, high-grade copper is selling for $3,750 a metric TON, not gram)

So, it's possible that one of the radioisotopes is valuable, but given its short half-life (<>
This seems like incontrovertible proof of scam-hood, if i'm interpreting this info correctly.

Am I?
posted by stuehler at 1:15 PM on October 24, 2008

Flip it around: let's state the only possible case where it could be useful. So let's brainstorm ... clearly 62 hours is too short of a half-life for imports/exports to be practical (much less legal, given how much radiation it would throw out).

The only case I could make for it is purity. Hydrogen's first interesting isotope isn't exactly perfectly rare - deuterium is an isotope for about 1 in 6,500 hydrogen atoms, but getting it pure would cost you a bundle.

Perhaps there is a particular application for relatively pure Cu-63 or Cu-65. Only in that event would this be scenario be of benefit.
posted by adipocere at 1:16 PM on October 24, 2008

I don't know if it is a scam or not (though I have my suspicions), but even if there is a whole lot of Cu-63, and Cu-65 in the world, they aren't in an isotropically pure form, and it doesn't seem like it would be cheap to separate them in kilogram quantities (think of how much equipment it takes to separate different isotopes of Uranium.

I'm not sure what the industrial or military applications of isotopically pure copper would be. Generally, with heavier elements, a few neutrons doesn't make much difference in the chemistry and physical characteristics of the element.

I guess one use for a pure isotope would be in producing a radioisotope form via irradiation.
posted by Good Brain at 1:35 PM on October 24, 2008

Best answer: Yeah, what adipocere said. Ignoring the scammy-sounding context, the only thing I can imagine this being is isotopically pure (or just enriched) copper-63 or -65. A quick google reveals the expected occasional use in experimental physics, biology, and nuclear medicine, and sellers like these. Isotope separation is hard (it's the main hurdle to becoming an atomic power, for example) so thousands of dollars per gram doesn't seem absurd, but I'd guess there also isn't much of a market for it.

That same google query also turns up really dodgy-looking sites like this one selling "copper isotope", which by the description appears to be just plain old copper in its naturally-occurring isotope ratio, but being sold at huge prices.

So yeah, scam. Unless your in-law (a) understands the market for this substance well enough to be able to describe what's valuable (greater than X% purity of isotope Y, and so on) and (b) independently verifies the product being sold (with a mass spectrometer run, e.g.) I'd say stay far, far away.
posted by hattifattener at 1:53 PM on October 24, 2008

Scam. Science aside, things are only worth what people will pay for them. Ask him if he has any legitimate buyers lined up.
posted by emd3737 at 2:42 PM on October 24, 2008

Response by poster: I'm going to call several of the legit labs that produce isotopically pure Cu-63 and Cu-65, and check the price. I have a feeling it will be several orders of magnitude lower than what this guy claims. That's one nail in the coffin.

The other possibility - he claims that the copper is "99.998%" pure. I haven't figured out what the purity specs are for ordinary exchange-traded copper, but I guess it's theoretically possible, until I prove otherwise, that his copper is so exceptionally pure as to justify his extreme price.

Anyone know the purity of exchange-traded copper? Or the value of copper that's 99.998% pure?

Even giving him the benefit of the doubt, it seems likely that extraordinarily pure copper is that much more valuable than ordinary copper.

So, if i can put that second nail in, I'll post that here too, just in case anyone is curious...
posted by stuehler at 2:52 PM on October 24, 2008

Best answer: Ordinary exchange-traded copper: 99.9935% pure (see their spec for copper).

Having the story suddenly change from being "copper isotope" to "pure copper" pretty much nails the scam status in my opinion, though.
posted by hattifattener at 3:03 PM on October 24, 2008

I wonder if your in-law's deal is the same as this one (scroll down to the last post).

In any case, you can get 99.9995% pure copper discs from Alfa Aesar for $124.00 per 10g disc or $472.00 per 50g disc. And that's the retail, non-bulk price. For some reason, I can't link to their product page, so just search for Catalog Item #10951 on this page. You can also search for CAS number 7440-50-8 for other pure copper products.
posted by mhum at 3:19 PM on October 24, 2008