Investment Banking Made in China: Fake Goldman Sachs Spotted in Shenzhen

China's capacity for counterfeits has reached new depths of deception; a fake branch of Goldman Sachs was spotted in the city of Shenzhen.

Investment banking institutions are no exception to China’s capacity to make counterfeit goods, it emerged, after a fake branch of Goldman Sachs was found to be operating in Shenzhen, despite having no connection to the global investment bank.

The institution, called 'Goldman Sachs (Shenzhen) Financial Leasing,' came to the attention of authorities after a US casino workers union wrote to Chinese corruption investigators at the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, asking them to investigate the bank. 

A member of staff at the bank, which uses the same Chinese characters, gao sheng, and a similar English font to that of the investment institution, assured the press that the similarity was just a coincidence.

"We don't have any connection with the US Goldman Sachs,” said the worker, who answered a phone call to the branch. 

"We just picked the name out; it's not intentionally the same." 

Goldman Sachs is not the first inspiration for a counterfeit bank in China. Earlier this month, a man named Zhang was arrested in eastern China for setting up a fake branch of China Construction Bank. 

Zhang, 39, equipped his branch with card readers, passbooks and a teller counter, and employed his daughter and two of her classmates as 'employees.'

Farmer arrested for allegedly opening fake China Construction Bank https://t.co/eWv8RKIGDF pic.twitter.com/ikW7yStqEp

— Hong Kong Free Press (@HongKongFP) 19 августа 2015

"I just wanted to open a bank," Zhang, a farmer, told the Shandong Television network, after his arrest.

"I didn't think that much about it." 

The deception was uncovered after a woman who had opened an account at Zhang's branch then tried to withdraw money from her account at a real branch of China Construction Bank, where bank managers alerted police.