Cheating investors under the guise of gold speculation on international markets is an emerging form of fraud, a local court said.

Since the end of 2012, the court of Shanghai's Jing'an district has tried several criminals who got investors to speculate in valuable metals in false accounts or take part in illegal overseas gold or foreign exchange trading. The investors ended up being cheated.

Wealth management professionals said victims were attracted to illegitimate service providers by the principal they required - as little as 5 percent of what legitimate wealth management institutions demand.