|
The Fort Knox Conundrum: Chinese say they received bogus bars of gold traced to U.S.
By Pat Shannan
Could
over 1 million bars of gold, much of which is still held in Fort Knox,
Ky., be counterfeit? An October 2009 discovery that suggests this may
be true has been suppressed by the mainstream media but has been
circulating among the “big money” brokers and
financial kingpins. It is just now being revealed to the public.
Gold
is regularly exchanged between countries to pay debts and to settle the
so-called balance of trade. It is often also used as a hedge against a
falling currency. Gold is regularly traded and stored in vaults under
the strict supervision of a special organization based in London, known
as the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA). That’s why
news of counterfeit gold bars was a surprise to many experts.
In
October 2009, China reportedly received a large shipment of gold,
containing some 6,000 bars, weighing 400 ounces each. When it was
received, the Chinese government asked that tests be performed to
guarantee the purity and weight of the gold bars. In this test, four
small holes were drilled into the bars, and the metal was analyzed.
Officials were shocked to find the bars were bogus. They contained
cores of tungsten, with only an outer coating of real gold.
What’s more, these gold bars, containing serial numbers for
tracking, originated in the United States and had reportedly been
stored in Fort Knox for years.
 |
According
to gold expert Theo Gray, there are very few metals that are as dense
as gold. With only two exceptions, they all cost as much or more than
gold. The standard gold bar for bank-to-bank trade, known as a
“London good delivery bar,” weighs 400 troy ounces
(more than 33 pounds), yet is no bigger than a paperback novel. To put
it in perspective, a bar of steel the same size weighs only 13.5 pounds.
This
was the problem that the Ethiopians had in early 2008 when they tried
to dump millions of dollars in fake gold into South African banks. What
were supposed to be bars of solid gold turned out to be nothing more
than gold-plated steel. The South Africans quickly figured this out and
sent the shipment back—apparently discovering the hoax with
only minimal investigation.
The
first exception to the weight of gold is depleted uranium (DU). This
material is dirt cheap if you’re a government, but is hard
for individuals to get. It’s also radioactive, which makes
the handling of it impractical.
Interestingly
enough, before DU was widely used as a U.S. weapons component to make
shells more able to penetrate hardened targets, tungsten was used for
that purpose.
But
tungsten is vastly cheaper than gold—maybe $30 dollars a
pound, compared to $1,200 an ounce for gold right now. It has exactly
the same density as gold, to three decimal places. Therefore, it has to
be drilled to detect the fraud. The only differences are that
it’s the wrong color, and that it’s much harder
than gold. Pure gold is soft and can be dented with a fingernail.
At
first, many gold experts speculated that the fake gold must have
originated in China, which is considered the world’s best
knock-off producers. However, the Chinese government investigated and
issued a statement pointing a finger squarely at the United States.
The
Chinese claim that in 1995—during the Clinton administration
(Robert Rubin, Alan Greenspan and Lawrence Summers)—between
1.3 million and 1.5 million 400-ounce tungsten blanks were manufactured
by a sophisticated refiner in the United States, amounting to more than
16,000 metric tons. Some 640,000 of these tungsten blanks were then
gold plated and shipped to Fort Knox, according to the Chinese, where
they are said to remain to this day. The Chinese contend that the
remaining collection of these 400-ounce fakes was eventually
gold-plated and then “sold” into international
markets.
The
global market is literally “stuffed full of 400 ounce salted
bars,” said one unnamed expert. “It’s
enough to destroy the world markets.”
Pat Shannan is the assistant editor of American Free Press. He is also the author of several videos and books including One in a Million: An IRS Travesty and I Rode With Tupper,
detailing Shannan’s experiences with Tupper Saussy when the
American dissident was on the run in the 1980s. Both are available from
FIRST AMENDMENT BOOKS for $25 each.
Subscribe to American Free Press. Online subscriptions: One year of weekly editions—$15 plus you get a BONUS ELECTRONIC BOOK - HIGH PRIESTS OF WAR - By Michael Piper.
Print subscriptions: 52 issues crammed into 47 weeks of the year plus six free issues of Whole Body Health: $59 Order on this website or call toll free 1-888-699-NEWS .
Sign up for our free e-newsletter here - get a free gift just for signing up!
(Issue # 5, February 1, 2010)
|
|
