As the saying goes “If you don’t hold it you don’t own it” but there are plenty of investors who are all too happy to have Counter-parties hold their Gold for them. Every now and then a story does pop up about Gold (or even Crypto) that is supposed to be held safely on behalf of customers....that isn’t actually there.
This week there is another such story coming out of Australia. Over here we have a government regulatory body called the Australian Securities and Investments Commission which is supposed to protect investors from dodgy schemes (among other things). Not surprisingly it’s a bit of a toothless tiger at times and most of the debate amongst local stackers is about whether they are corrupt or just incompetent.
ASIC is supposed to handle complaints from investors about companies committing fraud and the current case which is potentially about to blow wide open is about Gold. The question is whether the Gold which this (so far unnamed) company is supposed to be holding on behalf of it’s customers actually exists and whether they have used fake gold, or even stacked their vault with borrowed gold when the “Telegraphed in advance” investigators finally showed up to take a look.
The above clip features an Australian Senator grilling a Representative of ASIC in the Senate Economics Legislation Committee about this particular case and you can tell from the line of questioning that this is potentially a very serious matter. As usual the bureaucrat from ASIC is mostly deflecting, but if you can read between the lines it’s pretty clear that there is something going on here.
I suspect that this may be the case that local bullion maverick John Adams has been fighting with ASIC and while he hasn’t revealed the details of his own case, the timings line up and the subject matter is pretty much spot on. John Adams is astute and quite likely to have made contact with the Senator in the above clip – who loves to call bureaucrats to account...or at least try to.
It is also quite possible that the company in question is actually the Perth Mint who got caught selling “Diluted” gold to China earlier this year and tried to cover it up The Perth Mint has had the spotlight turned on it as a result of that case and most stackers globally would recognize that the Perth Mint is probably the biggest player in the Australian Bullion Market with a lot of very cool products.
I need to add the disclaimer that this is just my own speculation about what MIGHT be the case, but regardless of the outcomes of these latest investigations, the moral of the story remains the same. Be careful who you trust your Gold with because it might not actually be there when it’s time to redeem it....
