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Exclusive: "And It's Gone... It's All Gone" - The One Gold Scandal That Goes To The Very Top
Long before Turkey was flagrantly arming and funding the CIA-created "terrorist organization" known as ISIS, there was another, far more elaborate way in which Turkey was flaunting international sanctions against an ostracized state - in this case Iran - which involved an epic gold smuggling triangle of Hollywood-thriller proportions, all made possible thanks to the United Arab Emirate city of Dubai.
Best known known for its luxury shopping, ultramodern architecture including the world's tallest building, a lively nightlife scene, and a facade of openness and decorum, what Dubai is less known for is its unprecedented seedy underbelly of corruption and untouched criminality among the handful of billionaire oligarchs, princes, sheiks and sultans, who quietly dominate the local (and global) power and financial structure.
But first, a little history.
It may seem like a distant memory now, but just a few short years ago, instead of a close ally of Barack Obama, Iran was a pariah state subject to international financial sanctions due to its nuclear program development, one which Israel had repeatedly (and famously) threatened would attack preemptively to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
Iran, of course, had no choice but to find ways to keep its economy going, and in order to circumvent these sanctions, it resorted to the oldest trade currency known: gold.
This, in itself, is not surprising. What is surprising is how and with whom Iran collaborated to breach the international embargo in order to obtain this valuable and much needed gold, which it could then barter with other countries - notably those along the Pacific Rim - in exchange for any and all needed products and services.
A Reuters article from October 23, 2012 explained, in broad terms, just how Iran's intricate smuggling operation worked.
To see one of Iran's financial lifelines at work, pay a visit to Istanbul's Ataturk International Airport and find a gate for a flight to Dubai. Couriers carrying millions of dollars worth of gold bullion in their luggage have been flying from Istanbul to Dubai, where the gold is shipped on to Iran, according to industry sources with knowledge of the business.
The sums involved are enormous. Official Turkish trade data suggests nearly $2 billion worth of gold was sent to Dubai on behalf of Iranian buyers in August. The shipments help Tehran manage its finances in the face of Western financial sanctions.
The sanctions, imposed over Iran's disputed nuclear program, have largely frozen it out of the global banking system, making it hard for it to conduct international money transfers. By using physical gold, Iran can continue to move its wealth across borders.
"Every currency in the world has an identity, but gold means value without identity. The value is absolute wherever you go," said a trader in Dubai with knowledge of the gold trade between Turkey and Iran.
The identity of the ultimate destination of the gold in Iran is not known. But the scale of the operation through Dubai and its sudden growth suggest the Iranian government plays a role.
The Dubai trader and other sources familiar with the business spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity, because of the political and commercial sensitivity of the matter.
Iran sells oil and gas to Turkey, with payments made to state Iranian institutions. U.S. and European banking sanctions ban payments in U.S. dollars or euros so Iran gets paid in Turkish lira. Lira are of limited value for buying goods on international markets but ideal for a gold buying spree in Turkey.
So three years ago, Turkey was purchasing Iran oil and paying in gold. Now it is purchasing ISIS oil and paying in dollars, for the simple reason that there is no banking embargo against the Islamic State like there was against Iran in 2012. One almost wonders why the international community was far stricter with Iran than it is with ISIS now.
Anyway, continuing on, we present: the Dubai connection.
In March [of 2012] as the banking sanctions began to bite, Tehran sharply increased its purchases of gold bullion from Turkey, according to the Turkish government's trade data. Direct gold exports to Iran from Turkey, long a major consumer and stockpiler of gold, hit $1.8 billion in July - equivalent to over a fifth of Turkey's entire trade deficit in that month.
In August, however, a sudden plunge in Turkey's direct gold exports to Iran coincided with a leap in its sales of the precious metal to the UAE.
Turkey exported a total $2.3 billion worth of gold in August, of which $2.1 billion was gold bullion. Just over $1.9 billion, about 36 metric tons, was sent to the UAE, latest available data from Turkey's Statistics Office shows. In July Turkey exported only $7 million of gold to the UAE. At the same time Turkey's direct gold exports to Iran, which had been fluctuating between $1.2 billion and about $1.8 billion each month since April, slumped to just $180 million in August.
The Dubai-based trader said that from August, direct shipments to Iran were largely replaced by indirect ones through Dubai, apparently because Tehran wanted to avoid publicity.
"The trade from Turkey directly to Iran has stopped because there was just too much publicity around it," said the trader.
However, instead of suddenly having a craving for Turkish gold, Dubai was merely a middleman which would then resell Turkey's gold to Iran, in exchange for a very generous commission.
Dealers, jewelers and analysts in Dubai said they had not noticed any large, sudden increase of supply in the local gold market during August. They said that suggested the increased shipments to the UAE were sent straight on to Iran.
It is not clear how the gold is moved from Dubai to Iran, but there is substantial trade between the two economies, much of it conducted by wooden dhows and other ships crossing the Gulf, a distance of only about 150 kilometers (100 miles) at its narrowest point.
And as everyone knows, what better way to "lose" gold at a moment's notice than to be involved in an "unfortunate shipping accident"...
A trader in Turkey said Tehran had shifted to indirect imports because the direct shipments were widely reported in Turkish and international media earlier this year. "Now on paper it looks like the gold is going to Dubai, not to Iran," he said.
Iranian gold buyers may want to conceal their Turkish gold deliveries for fear of attracting attention from the United States, which is pressing countries around the world to shrink their economic ties with Iran.
The buyers may also want to make their purchases less vulnerable to any possible interference by Turkey's government. Turkey's close relationship with Iran has begun to sour as the two states find themselves on opposite sides of the civil war in Syria, with Turkey advocating the departure of President Bashar al-Assad and Iran remaining Assad's staunchest regional ally.
Fear not: if the Erdogan family was guaranteed, say 5% of the total transaction price, it would gladly close its eyes, even if it meant the Ayatollah singing lullabies and war chants to Assad in his bedroom.
But why gold?
Simple: while Iran's banks had been locked out of SWIFT international money transfer system (until mid-2015 when Obama's historic nuclear deal with Iran was announced and let Iran back into the global financial community), and commerce was virtually impossible in fiat currency terms, the UN sanctions did not prohibit most forms of trade. As a result there was no suggestion that the gold trade involving Dubai was violating international sanctions. In fact, the west tacitly encouraged, and Turkey latched on to this great source of trade arbitrage, and unbridled corruption with both hands. Reuters continued:
Turkish trade data confirms the gold is being transported to Dubai by air. According to the data, $1.45 billion of Turkey's total gold exports in August [2012] were shipped through the customs office at Ataturk airport's passenger lounge. Almost all of the rest, $800 million, were shipped from Istanbul's smaller Sabiha Gokcen airport. Turkey's total exports of all goods to the UAE totaled $2.2 billion in August. Of that amount, $1.19 billion were registered at the Ataturk passenger lounge, while $776 million were registered at Sabiha Gokcen.
It was a golden free for all: "a customs broker who does business at Ataturk said couriers were boarding Turkish Airlines and Emirates flights to Dubai at the airport, carrying the metal in their hand luggage to avoid the risk of it getting lost or stolen."
The maximum amount of gold bullion which a passenger is allowed to take is 50 kilograms (110 pounds), he said. This suggests that during the month of August, as many as several hundred courier trips may have taken gold to Dubai on Iran's behalf.
"It is all legal, they declare it, they give their tax number and it is all registered so there is nothing illegal about this," the broker said.
The Reuters article cut off at the most important part: who were the people organizing the trade? "The trade data shows almost $1.4 billion worth of Turkey's August exports to the UAE came from a company or companies with a tax number registered in the coastal city of Izmir, Turkey's third biggest. Customs officials at Ataturk declined a Reuters request to provide documents identifying the exporters, saying the information was confidential. The identity of the companies handling the business could not be confirmed. Traders said that because of the risk of attracting unwelcome attention from U.S. authorities, only a few companies were likely to be willing to get involved."
Almost a year later, we found out just why the local authorities were so very cautious about identifying the people on the Turkish side behind this "perfectly legal trade"- it involved everyone from an Iranian billionaire, Riza Sarraf, to Turkey's then economy minister, Zafer Caglayan, all the way to the very top, you guessed it, current president and then prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. A Bloomberg follow up piece from the summer of 2013 laid out all the key actors on the Turkish side:
As the minister in charge of Turkey’s $800 billion economy in 2013, Zafer Caglayan was facing a series of numbers that didn’t bode well for coming elections. Inflation was up, growth was slowing and the lira was weakening.
One key measure of financial health was particularly worrisome: the country was importing far more goods, services and capital than it was sending abroad. By October, when he was interviewed by a local CNBC affiliate, Caglayan described the gap as unsustainable and said the government would take steps to improve it.
What he didn’t mention was a clandestine export-boosting operation started up more than a year before that was helping to solve the trade imbalance.
At the time of the television appearance, it was still underway. Three weeks before, Caglayan had been secretly taped by national-police investigators telling his collaborators to find a way to increase exports by at least $1 billion a month. His orders came from the top in a two-hour meeting with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, he told an associate.
The operation featured an Iranian-born businessman who liked fast horses, faster cars and the fastest planes. His unique skill: Getting gold into sanctions-encircled Iran. Enough gold that for a time he became the government’s key instrument in improving Turkey’s irksome economic imbalance.
How a team that included Turkey’s economy minister sought to manage the current account deficit, as the gap is called, by juicing exports to Iran is laid out in a 300-page document prepared by Turkish investigators in 2013. Caglayan and his collaborators also came away with tens of millions of dollars in bribes, according to the document, which has been cited in parliament by opposition lawmakers.
Caglayan resigned on Dec. 25 as economy minister after the investigation became public, is immune from prosecution as a member of parliament. Erdogan, whose bribes from this operations were in the hundreds of millions of dollars, did everything in his power as then-prime minister to kill the probe and decried the inquiry as an "attempted coup", a card he has pulled every single time some political probe gets too close to his unprecedented financial crimes, which have a recurring pattern: sell goods and services to an organization isolated by the international community, and pocket tens or hundreds of millions in "commissions" and bribes in the process.
Since then Erdogan has made Turkey his personal despotic fiefdom, and after serving as prime minister from 2003 to 2014, he was "elected" president in which role he serves to this day. There is not a soul in Turkey who poses any political threat to Erdogan, whose vast plundered financial fortune assures that the army would be on his side even in a military coup scenario.
In any case, the spice, or rather gold, flowed. As Bloomberg confirmed in 2013, "the covert efforts that Caglayan and his associates undertook eventually swelled to a multi-billion dollar enterprise that reached from Ghana to China, according to the investigation. Tons of gold flowed from Turkey to Iran, much of it via Dubai. That freed up Iranian money trapped in Turkish banks, in turn boosting Turkish exports.
When the gold trade was foiled by tightening American sanctions starting in July 2013, Sarraf and his collaborators kept exporting. They sent thousands of tons of overpriced -- and sometimes fictitious -- food onto ships steaming between Dubai and Iran, according to the document."
It was not just Erdogan and Caglayan who made a killing: "Smoothing out the complications of this shadowy and complex trade were bribes to Turkish government ministers: multimillion-dollar diamonds, and millions of dollars stuffed into suit bags, chocolate boxes and even shoe boxes, the investigation document says."
Meanwhile, the amounts of gold shipped from Turkey to Iran via Dubai were simply staggering:
In an interview with television channel A Haber, Sarraf estimated he had facilitated the transfer of about $12 billion in gold -- about 200 tons -- to Iran. That represented “about 15 percent-15.5 percent of the current account deficit that I closed by myself,” he said. He didn’t say what period he was referencing.
“There’s a serious benefit to the Turkish economy with profit that’s gone into state coffers,” he told the interviewer.
Ultimately, this unprecedented in its vast scale and scope gold smuggling operation, which stretched as far as China, Moscow and Azerbaijan, faded: in July 2013 the U.S. added precious metals to the list of items that couldn’t be sold to Iran as part of an effort to curtail that country’s nuclear enrichment program.
At that moment that Iran gold smuggling party for Turkey was over, and it was time to find a new foreign "trade" partner. A year later one emerged in the form of ISIS as has been documented here previously...
* * *
All of this has been publicly known so far. What follows is being reported for the first time.
While in 2012 and 2013 the world's attention was focused on Iran and Turkey, with both Reuters and Bloomberg scrambling to find the involved parties, nobody paid any attention to the key middle-man responsible for billions in smuggled gold, Dubai. And while the main Turkish actors and beneficiaries of this gold smuggling have been extensively documented, nothing at all has been written about any of the Dubai intermediaries who also made hundreds of millions, if not more, simply for facilitating the move of gold from point A to point B.
Which is strange, because for anyone doing even a little cursory digging, the answer was there in broad daylight all along.
Presenting Mohammed Abu-Alhaj: the key Dubai "connection" in the Turkey-Iran gold smuggling triangle.
Who is Abu-Alhaj? A brief biography from his public profile:
Mohammad has many years of vast experience in the finance and financial technology industry. He began his career establishing an e-commerce business in the United States followed by another e-commerce of a different trade. He then moved on to Dubai in the early 2000s to establish a brokerage firm. Following its success he was a major shareholder in its subsidiaries across the MENA region.
Meanwhile he has set-up, directed and operated many entities in the online trading of financial products, and now gold and precious metals. Mohammad is very resourceful and possesses many highly qualified skills; he has developed innovative platforms for online trading, effective management and leading skills and he is thorough in analyzing problems and finding creative solutions.
Mohammad's latest accomplishment is the set-up of the Gold AE DMCC and its subsidiaries across the region, Switzerland and Africa, one of the first online trading entities for deliverable gold and silver, and Islamic dinars and dirhams in the United Arab Emirates.
Presently, Mohammad is the Founder, Chairman and Managing Director of Gold AE. He is also the deputy Chairman and a board member of Abu Alhaj Holdings, registered in the Dubai International Financial Centre.
What made Abu-Alhaj unique was his early fascination and interest in Turkey and its role in "physical deliverable gold" trading. A fascination which paid off in droves. Follow excerpts from article from Turkish newspaper Dunya...
... ironically written on October 23, 2012, the same day as Reuters first exposed Turkey's role in this epic gold smuggling triangle.
Dubai businessmen connects Gulf investors with Turkey
Mohammed Abu-Alhaj, vice chairman and chief executive officer of his Dubai-based family-owned Abu-Alhaj Holding, first visited Turkey as a tourist in 2004, and explored the economic possibilities of the country.
"I saw stability had started to take hold in the nation. Turkey was a highly productive country. I was certain it would become among the top emerging markets for years to come," the 40-year old businessmen reminisced in an interview in Istanbul on Saturday.
Soon he acquired a Turkish brokerage house, Ikrisat Yatirim, through the Savings Deposits Insurance Fund (TMSF), a state banking receivership fund, for S15 million, and became one of the first Arab Investors in Turkey.
In 2009, he sold the brokerage house to Dubai Holding. He then established in Istanbul's Atasehir financial district the company Altin 24.com, an on-line gold trading company. Altin 24 serves as the Istanbul office of his regional gold commerce company Gold.AE. He also founded a store in Istanbul's Covered Bazaar, the main gold and jewelry market of Turkey. Altin 24 provides full services in gold bullion and certificates trading for Turkish clients.
Although he employs only nine persons in Turkey, his Altin 24 has already carried out $700 million in gold trading in the country.
Istanbul and Dubai are the world's two biggest centers for gold trade.
Acting as bridge
"I started to believe I could be a bridge between the Arab world, especially the six nation Gulf Cooperation Countries (GCC), and the Turkish market," he said. "I resolved to help remove the obstacles preventing GCC oompanies from investing in the country."
He has been successful so far.
Although once shy of secular Turkey, Arab investment has been pouring into Turkey since Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's moderately Islamist Justice and Development Party came to power a decade ago.
* * *
Mr. Abu-Alhaj's father found Abu-Alhaj holding as a logistics company and then went into industry. The group, which he still runs with his five sons, now has investments in technical textiles, pharmaceuticals, agribusiness, real estate development, investment banking and tourism in seven nations: Dubai, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, Yemen and Turkey.
A graduate of computer science and information technologies from Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, he worked on Wall Street during the dot.com bubble that led to the collapse of hundreds of technology upstarts. He returned to his homeland to run the family business.
Mr. Abu-Allhaj believes that the decision of Turkey's Central Bank to allow depositors and banks to hold gold accounts has helped the country distance itself from the economic crises gripping the world.
"Gold accounts will save the country from the crisis in international markets that will happen for sure" he asserted.
He may be right about that, but it is everything else that has raised a red flag. Incidentally, those curious can read much more about Abu-Alhaj's push into Turkey's gold market in the Press section of his Gold.AE website.
But just who is Gold Arab Emirate, or Gold AE, based out of Dubai? We ask because we - like most of our readers - had never heard of this company before. Perhaps the company's biggest claim to fame was the first gold ATM it introduced in the Emirates back in 2010, to much media fanfare.
Ok, so they make gold ATMs. What else? For the answer we go straight to the company's website.
Gold AE, Like Your Gold Bank
Gold Arab Emirate, Gold AE is the first corporate entity in Middle East incorporated in Dubai – UAE, for E-Commerce of Gold & Silver bullion being its core commercial activity. Gold AE is conducting its operations under the commercial license # DMCC 30821, issued by Dubai Multi Commodities Centre (DMCC). DMCC is a Dubai Government’s initiative to monitor and facilitate the trading in precious metals.
In addition to its presence in Dubai, it has branches in Abu Dhabi (UAE), Jordan, Turkey, Switzerland and affiliations in Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
Gold AE is led by an experienced team of seasoned bullion professionals which gives it a competitive advantage over contemporary firms in the market and gaining a remarkable reputation as an emerging market participant in the gold markets of the gulf. We are proud to provide investor friendly schemes in bullion investments through our highly valuable trading platform apart from providing international brands in bullion products on our E-shop at comparatively low cost.
Gold AE is a subsidiary of M/s Gold Holding Ltd, a Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) based company. M/s Gold Holding Ltd. owns various trading entities involved in online bullion trading of physical gold and silver, gold mining and refining industries as well as entities serving the financial institutions for gold logistics. The Holding company professionally supports its subsidiaries with financing, operational business management and controlling activities. This includes market sectors such as gold industry, information technology, as well as financial investments.
Notable is the website's description of its executive management, which presents Abu-Alhaj as Chairman and Managing Director. Keep that in mind because it will be important shortly.
But even more important, is the company's description of itself as a subsidiary of Gold Holding Ltd. Who is Gold Holdings? Again, we go to the source:
Gold Holding Limited is an investment holding company headquartered in Dubai and registered under the laws and regulations of the Dubai International Financial Centre. Gold Holding is a thriving group that is constantly seeking new companies to join its growing portfolio of precious metal and mining companies. It does however have stringent ethical values that mean its procurement methods are always of the highest moral standards and it is highly selective in where it chooses to operate.
Basically, if Gold AE is the Turkey-focused trading front, Gold Holding is the mothership which deals with all major activities behind the scenes. This becomes immediately obvious when looking at the main shareholders and management team of the Holding company.
Main Shareholders:
- SBK Business Holding www.sbkholding.com
- Sheik Sultan BIn Khalifa bin sultan Al-nahyan (Chairman)
- Sheik Malek Hmood Alsabah (Vice Chairman)
- Abu-alhaj Holding
- Aruntani SacManagement:
- Chairman: Sheik Sultan bin khalifah Al nahyan
- Vice Chairman: Sheik Malek Hmood Alsabah
- Managing Director: Mo Nico Consari
- CEO: Andre Gauthier
- CFO: Fahad Ayoob
Please bear with us a few more minutes as we close all these semingly unconnected loops of ownership, because while most other names presented so far are largely meaningless, one name above stands out, that of Sheikh Sultan Bin Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
Sultan is the advisor to the President of UAE, the eldest son of Khalifa Bin, President of the United Arab Emirates, Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, and Ruler of Abu Dhabi.
Sultan was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel staff pilot in 1999 and then to the rank of colonel staff in February, 2000. He is the advisor to the president of the UAE, Khalifa bin Zayed, and the board chairman of the SBK Holding. He is among the board members of the Executive Council of Abu Dhabi. He was appointed the board member of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority for three years in April 2013.
Basically, Sultan is the second in command in the United Arab Emirates.
As for SBK Holding, it is the Holding Company of Sultan Bin Khalifa. "With its headquarters in the United Arab Emirates, SBK Holding has a range of companies that serve a broad cross-section of industries not only in the Gulf region but also globally."
A quick glance at the company's website shows that it is involved in virtually everything, and among the things it is involved in, is a vast gold trading empire courtesy of the Gold Holding company.
* * *
To recap the story so far:
- Mohammed Abu-Alhaj is the owner of Gold.AE, a gold trading operation, whose primary role has been facilitating gold trade in Turkey (and ostensibly, since it is the primary Dubai gold company involved in Turkey, was the dominant player in Turkey's smuggling of gold to Iran).
- Gold.AE is a subsidiary of Gold Holdings Ltd, a company which is owned by SBK Business Holdings and Abu Dhabi's second in command, the son and avisor to the ruler of Abu Dhabi, Sheik Sultan bin khalifah Al nahyan
All of this brings us to today, and the following letter which the suddenly very unfortunate clients of Gold.AE aka "Your Gold Bank", just received.
Dear Client
A group of minority shareholders of GOLD HOLDING suspected that there were questionable financial transactions being undertaken in Gold AE DMCC ("the Company"). Acting on these suspicions they initiated internal investigations. During the course of the investigations the entire then management team abruptly resigned with no notice. Since the majority shareholders also seemed to be unavailable, the minority shareholders did not accept this resignation. However, these persons went to DMCC, submitted their resignations and managed to get their visas cancelled.
Following this, in august 2015, Mr. Andre Gauthier has been appointed as the manager of the Company so that investigations continued and once completed necessary action can be taken to secure the interests of the clients and shareholders of the company. His appointment took effect from August 9 ,2015 . When he took over, new management realized that he now had access to more information concerning the activities of the previous management and, he realized that there had been substantial withdrawals from the company's account to the personal accounts of some of the management and the majority shareholders.
Management has also uncovered information with respect to the existence of a bank account with Arab Bank (Switzerland) Ltd in Switzerland in the name of the Company. An attempt has been made to approach this bank but, since none of the current management or minority shareholders are signatories to the account and, due to the stringent Swiss banking laws and regulations regarding confidentiality, no additional information or access has been provided by the bank.
In order to try and secure/recover monies that had been taken out of the accounts of the company, Mr. Gauthier in his capacity as manager has filed various cases as against the recipients of the funds from the Company (Dubai Police ( Bur Dubai Police Station), Case No: 24378). The minority shareholders are doing everything within their powers to support him in his efforts to recover these monies that were withdrawn from Gold AE in questionable circumstances.
DMCC has alleged that some of these activities undertaken by the previous management are in breach of DMCC's rules and as such they have taken the decision to terminate the license of the Company. We are working closely with DMCC to find a solution and in the meanwhile, we request that you bear with us. In the meanwhile, as a statutory consequence of the license being terminated, the trading platform of the Company has to shut down as of the date of termination of the license which is 24th November 2015.
We trust the forgoing is of assistance.
Sincerely,
On behalf of GOLD AE MANAGEMENT
To loosely paraphrase South Park "aaaannd it's gone. The gold is all gone."
For all those who just received the letter, and had funds at Gold.AE, our condolences, because if there is any confusion, what it says is that after a cursory inquiry into the operations of the "former" management team, the one led by Abu-Alhaj, not only did the "management team" vaporize with all the funds held in the trading group, but they "seemed to be unavailable", meaning the management team itself vaporized. It also means that any funds you may have had there are gone for ever.
Furthermore, since the letter explicitly highlights the "minority shareholders", one wonders: was Sheik Sultan bin khalifah Al nahyan, the second most important person in Abu Dhabi, and a majority shareholder, involved in this unprecedented raiding of a company that was instrumental in the Turkey-to-Iran gold smuggling campaign?
And if he wasn't directly involved, just how much about this company's gold-smuggling operations did he know?
But perhaps the money is not completely vaporized. Perhaps it is simply sitting in the following Swiss bank as per the letter:
Then again, we doubt that any money parked by the fraudulent management team of Gold AE will ever be uncovered, if only in the public realm: after all, the tentacles of this particular scandal stretch very far, so far that anyone who dares to talk will not live to say much more.
How far?
Let's summarize once again: a gold-smuggling scandal that took place under the nose of the US and the international community for years, one which allowed Iran to skirt international sanctions using gold as a barter tool to keep its economy going and involved China and Russia among many other nations, and one which saw the participation of not only the economic and prime ministers of Turkey (and current president) but also countless corrupt Turkish politicians and the richest person in Iran, but also the second most powerful person in Dubai, the largest holding company in the Arab Emirates and the largest gold holding company in the Gulf state.
A scandal which resulted in untold riches for everyone involved, and has also resulted in the Dubai management team disappearing with what may well be billions in stolen funds.
And, naturally, there is a token "anonymous" Swiss bank to boot, which is likely the resting place of said stolen billions.
All of this it is real, it happened, and is not the screenplay of the next James Bond movie.
And - the punchline - it all revolves around one of the simplest products known to man: gold.
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Free Mohammed Abu-Alhaj
#BringBackOurMohammeds
If Frank Marshall Davis had a son his middle name would be Hussein.
so what?
great Christmas Day read..........
http://nautil.us/issue/31/stress/what-i-learned-from-losing-200-million
That was a fascinating read. Excellent post. Criminals and corruption reign in this cesspool. Earth needs a good cleansing. Be sure to let us know when the merc teams finish and they locate the bodies. I doubt anyone screws over these types and lives long to tell about it.
Most of you own gold. But I doubt many of you own any Frankincense or Myrrh in its various forms and uses. There are many valuable reasons to have all 3 gifts of the Magi.
"In Arabia alone of all lands, there grows frankincense, myrrh, cinnamon, and ladanum. The Arabians procure all these things with difficulty, except myrrh.
Frankincense, anyway, they collect by burning storax; for winged snakes, small in size and spotted in appearance, guard these incense-bearing trees, a great crowd around each tree. They are driven away from the trees by nothing other than the smoke of the storax." - Tales From Herodotus Curiosities of Arabia
Actually I own all three. Ethiopian Myrrh. Arabian Frankincense. And gold. Those were the three gifts that were given to Jesus upon his birth. I am guessing most people, and sadly many Christians, don't know what the three wisemen from the East brought to Christ upon his birth.
Oh, and for the record I also have a copy of Herodotus, "The Histories," Folio of London edition.
A very nice story for Christmas. Thank you ZH and all the great commentators from whom I have learned much over the past few years.
I have a little gold, but really enjoy my silver.
So Merry Christmas to all, and to all, FREE HOUSES FOR EVERYBODY, a good night.
Lose the "Turban" and we'll talk... ;-)
You had your fun... The cycle has turned.
Sore loser.
it took you long enough
Bunny Swanson?
Thank you for another deep dive.
Merry Christmas to all to to all a Corzine.
Those pesky Turks. Never met a turkman who didn't salivate at the mention of gold. Even Muhammad takes a back seat.
I've known a few Turkish /Mexican, restaurateur
Yen,
always enjoy your insight. was a decent size put seller on the cme. my guy (cta) not doing much now.
presently adm is our fcm. I'm looking for a new home. rwz
I caught your invite. ;-)
We'll talk in January.
Yen
look forward to it.
rwz
If it's hard to understand why currency and "real value" don't match up, look at the nature of currency. Not all dollars are equal.
Praise the Lord & Pass the Ammunition
Merry Christmas & Death to the Moneychangers
Based on my posting time, 21,000+ reads and 47 comments. Some folks are scared shitless. Good job Tyler.
Middle East Gangsta Hoodies Rock. If Santa doesn't bring me mine I'll have to roll with a dirty napkin and old tricycle tire.
Don't forget to inflate the tricycle tires and wear a bike helmet. Combat is not like riding a girls bike in mom jeans.
Obama Insists Inflating Tires Better Than Oil Drilling - YouTube
Vintage ZH reporting. Excellent work boys. Enjoyed reading this.
Did the $150,000,000,000 given to Iran buy some gold?
The funds are" mostly" un-released.
The stated total is well under $155 mm
The demise of currency? China and Japan over 300% of "stated" GDP?
Google sucks ass!
learn to fish?
Those cheeky bastards!
I am 64 years old, and was drafted into the U.S. military in 1968.
I crawled around on my belly in the jungles of Vietnam shooting at gooks for 2 years defending Communism.
You young fucks went to school and you read your history books. You got the totally mistaken impression I was defending Capitalism.
Oh well, Merry Christmas and a happy new year you ignorant Communist fucks.
Dunno, but by you defending communism during the Vietnam invasion, that makes you a communist.
Oh, and the draft was for ONE tour in Vietnam.
So obviously you enjoyed fighting for communism so much you stayed an extra tour.
And you have the gall to call others, "ignorant communists".
'Merica seems to be a breeding ground for stupid people.
Fuck you.
And a double from me to GOD! FU you wimp word writer. Come and get it you puke!
The Old Man
If you ever go to a proctologist I hope he's near-sighted and he does something bad to you.
Forgive them Arthur they just don't understand what you are saying......yet.
Thank you for serving our country. I was only one year old (1967). Keep reminding them. School textbooks have been altered by Randell clan recreating history as a philanthropy fund.
Lets poke at a known issue.
Turkish Philanthropy Funds (TPF)
Follow the money back into the Clinton Foundations and others. These people need to be executed. Its that bad.
Merry Christmas Aurther and your loved ones..
I can't quite remember the exact date of my physical at the federal building. memory foggy. But I think it was AFTER my 18th birthday. since i was born in early 51, that would have been early 1969.
I received a physical deferment they told me that day. Then the lottery for 1969 took place in late 1969 for 18 year olds.
I was not drafted. But if I remember correctly no 17 year old was EVER drafted. If I'm wrong please let me know.
For I am a January 51 baby. So how is it possible you are 64 and were drafted in 68? you are the ignorant fuck
Correct me if I'm wrong but:
Ignorance ignores the message while too busy splitting the hairs.
To G-d
my reply to Arthur was meant to reveal that he was obviously lying. My memory not great but I do and did know
4 friends who served in Viet Nam. No one who served had any tour of 2 years in country. Not possible. No one was
drafted at the age of 17. this Arthur is just a wanna be liar. One friend died on a landmine. one became disabled
with delayed stress, totally disabled now. One ran over a little boy while driving a transport, told to not stop, haunted him
until he died some 5 years ago. last friend exposed to agent orange. While I did NOT serve I know many who did. I did not
believe in that war in the least. But I don't appreciate someone blowing their horn with obvious lies to make themselves feel big or important. I see it in "rolling thunder" to a degree makes me sick.
So I am normally very polite, this just struck me wrong. I did not mean to offend others on ZH.
thanks,
rwz
Although she retracted her statement, the damage was created. Done with Ohio liberals. Selling two properties in 2016. Fuck you! Enjoying the southern east coast states. No bullshit down here.
Original Obamaphone Lady: Obama Voter Says Vote for
Dubai Banker? Hello? Dubai Banker? Still there? What a piece of work...and bullion is just a pebble
in the sand as the saying goes.
I told you that once we turn SA into a glass sand field, Henry Kissinger is done. So is the rampant War on Terrorism threat.
Just turn DC and Wall Street into glass, both those threats and others will go away.
It's Christmas!
Paul Craig Roberts’ Christmas Column, 2015
My traditional Christmas column goes back to sometime in the 1990s when I was a newspaper columnist. It has been widely reprinted at home and abroad. Every year two or three readers write to educate me that religion is the source of wars and persecutions. These readers confuse religion with mankind’s abuse of institutions, religious or otherwise. The United States has democratic institutions and legal institutions to protect civil liberties. Nevertheless, we now have a police state. Shall I argue that democracy and civil liberty are the causes of police states?
Some readers also are confused about hypocrisy. There is a vast difference between proclaiming moral principles that one might fail to live up to and proclaiming immoral principles that are all too easy to keep.
Liberty is a human achievement. We have it, or had it, because those who believed in it fought to achieve it. As I explain in my Christmas column, people were able to fight for liberty because Christianity empowered the individual.
The other cornerstone of our culture is the Constitution. Indeed, the United States is the Constitution. Without the Constitution, the United States is a different country, and Americans a different people. This is why assaults on the Constitution by the Bush and Obama regimes are assaults on America that are far worse than any assaults by terrorists. There is not much that we can do about these assaults, but we should not through ignorance enable the assaults or believe the government’s claim that safety requires the curtailment of civil liberty.
In a spirit of goodwill, I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a successful New Year.
Paul Craig Roberts
The Greatest Gift For All
Christmas is a time of traditions. If you have found time in the rush before Christmas to decorate a tree, you are sharing in a relatively new tradition. Although the Christmas tree has ancient roots, at the beginning of the 20th century only 1 in 5 American families put up a tree. It was 1920 before the Christmas tree became the hallmark of the season. Calvin Coolidge was the first President to light a national Christmas tree on the White House lawn.
Gifts are another shared custom. This tradition comes from the wise men or three kings who brought gifts to baby Jesus. When I was a kid, gifts were more modest than they are now, but even then people were complaining about the commercialization of Christmas. We have grown accustomed to the commercialization. Christmas sales are the backbone of many businesses. Gift giving causes us to remember others and to take time from our harried lives to give them thought.
The decorations and gifts of Christmas are one of our connections to a Christian culture that has held Western civilization together for 2,000 years.
In our culture the individual counts. This permits an individual person to put his or her foot down, to take a stand on principle, to become a reformer and to take on injustice.
This empowerment of the individual is unique to Western civilization. It has made the individual a citizen equal in rights to all other citizens, protected from tyrannical government by the rule of law and free speech. These achievements are the products of centuries of struggle, but they all flow from the teaching that God so values the individual’s soul that he sent his son to die so we might live. By so elevating the individual, Christianity gave him a voice.
Formerly only those with power had a voice. But in Western civilization people with integrity have a voice. So do people with a sense of justice, of honor, of duty, of fair play. Reformers can reform, investors can invest, and entrepreneurs can create commercial enterprises, new products and new occupations.
The result was a land of opportunity. The United States attracted immigrants who shared our values and reflected them in their own lives. Our culture was absorbed by a diverse people who became one.
In recent decades we have lost sight of the historic achievement that empowered the individual. The religious, legal and political roots of this great achievement are no longer reverently taught in high schools, colleges and universities or respected by our government. The voices that reach us through the millennia and connect us to our culture are being silenced by “political correctness” and “the war on terror.” Prayer has been driven from schools and Christian religious symbols from public life.
Constitutional protections have been diminished by hegemonic political ambitions. Indefinite detention, torture, and murder are now acknowledged practices of the United States government. The historic achievement of due process has been rolled back. Tyranny has re-emerged.
Diversity at home and hegemony abroad are consuming values and are dismantling the culture and the rule of law. There is plenty of room for cultural diversity in the world, but not within a single country. A Tower of Babel has no culture. A person cannot be a Christian one day, a pagan the next and a Muslim the day after. A hodgepodge of cultural and religious values provides no basis for law – except the raw power of the pre-Christian past.
All Americans have a huge stake in Christianity. Whether or not we are individually believers in Christ, we are beneficiaries of the moral doctrine that has curbed power and protected the weak. Power is the horse ridden by evil. In the 20th century the horse was ridden hard, and the 21st century shows an increase in pace. Millions of people were exterminated in the 20th century by National Socialists in Germany and by Soviet and Chinese communists simply because they were members of a race or class that had been demonized by intellectuals and political authority. In the beginning years of the 21st century, hundreds of thousands of Muslims in seven countries have already been murdered and millions displaced in order to extend Washington’s hegemony.
Power that is secularized and cut free of civilizing traditions is not limited by moral and religious scruples. V.I. Lenin made this clear when he defined the meaning of his dictatorship as “unlimited power, resting directly on force, not limited by anything.” Washington’s drive for hegemony over US citizens and the rest of the world is based entirely on the exercise of force and is resurrecting unaccountable power.
Christianity’s emphasis on the worth of the individual makes such power as Lenin claimed, and Washington now claims, unthinkable. Be we religious or be we not, our celebration of Christ’s birthday celebrates a religion that made us masters of our souls and of our political life on Earth. Such a religion as this is worth holding on to even by atheists.
As we enter into 2016, Western civilization, the product of thousands of years of striving, hangs in the balance. Degeneracy is everywhere before our eyes. As the West sinks into tyranny, will Western peoples defend their liberty and their souls, or will they sink into the tyranny, which again has raised its ugly and all devouring head?
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2015/12/23/christmas-column-2015/
well done
Out of curosity, J.R.
Our paths will probably cross soon.
How Zero considers itself an " Constitutional Lawyer" is Beguiling?
Curiouser and curiouser, Yen. Till then, in anticipation.
MERRY CHRISTMAS! once again, my friend. Antd thanks for the well done for the PCR... a Christmas classic for Western civilization.
How Zero considers itself an " Constitutional Lawyer" is Beguiling?
Yen - that was beguiling for many - until we realized what it really means - as Chumba & Chunga & others have repeatedly pointed out, what was really involved in the post Civil War RECONSTRUCTION years and what was purposely not taught much and sidestepped is the 1871 ACT which changed the constitution.
The USA is a corporate business. As Jimmy Carter said a couple months ago, Washington is FOR SALE. (side note : Jimmy's 28yr old grandson dropped dead out of the blue a couple days ago ...)
as a constitutional lawyer, at the elite Haaarvard, Zero knows that the real nature of the constitution is not what we quaintly tend to remember it as.
Let OZero beguile us ZeroHedgers no more
This is still better than what Pakistan did. The head of Pakistan's nuclear program actually gave Iran and North Korea "roll-your-own-nuke" kits that jump-started both countries' nuclear programs.
It will take a LOT of gold for Turkey to beat Pakistan in the "Are you really our friend?" contest.
Donald Rumsfeld worked on the Board of ABB. We sold North Korea a low water nuclear bad system. It never was completed. Bad people creating another proxity war. Sick fucking individuals working for the United States of American Taxpayers. Why are we 20 trillion in debt again?
Rumsfeld was on ABB board during deal with North Korea
So what are you trying to say? Leak something on ZH? Jeezus dude get a fricken life. A little late for that news.
What's wrong with that? That's what your precious USSA did for isrealshitholeland.
No way there isn't a trail of bodies behind this little shindig.
I was thinking the same thing. I bet they are stackin up like cordwood. Or maybe being thrown overboard as fast as possible. Buried? How do you get rid of bodies in the middle east? Unlike the USSA or Canada there are no pig farms. Alas. Pigs eat anything.
Only gold is money.
But what about bitcoin?
Silver and copper make good money too for smaller denominations! But yes...PMs + Copper for change or nothing. Fiat is for fuckwitts.
Hopefully Part II of this story will establish one or more link(s) between ME and US bullion banks. There is no way in hell that much physical gold is being moved around without the bullion banks being involved. No way.
I can't recount all corruption stories. What happened with Germany asking New York to send over gold holdings. I remember the ship had issues in deliverying cargo.
Help me piece together that event. Foggy memory. Thanks
Sure. Keep hoping. Maybe someday you will pull your head out of your arse.
Re-read the article. Rinse and repeat. It might sink in after 30 days.
How can I describe laughing out loud (insanely) so hard I'm going to have a stroke or go into a comatose state.
The joke is on us people! But we have to let it play out.
Keep this story going for as long as you can ZH!
The Old Man
9/11 - Tons Of Gold And Silver Buried Under The World ...
9 11 WTC Biggest Gold Heist in History $300 Billion in Bars ...
I can't find the link when the media ran Kwait gold being removed. Its on another hard drive. Enjoying Hilton Head Island.
Hint, its not that warm. The climate weather smuts are creating lies. I have worn jeans and a long shirt. I look at unaccurate weather. 74 degrees, never goes to that temperature. Yesterday it was so brezzy and mid 60's. They will blame me for being on Atlantic Ocean, this guy doesn't know our weather forecast montage bullshit. LOL
Just like are government is lying about the economy, climate change is lying as well. Keep a watchful eye
It has been below freezing in central California's San Joaquin Valley for a month, save for a few days in between when it rains or warm air makes it in. My lemon tree shows the impact of freeze damage. And we have had a lot of rain/snow in mountains. Typically, the cold weather hits in January and February. Yes, they are pulling our leg, those ....sending their species into hell on earth, like they were God. The illusion is theirs.
Stop whining and pay your carbon tax.
Trust in God, black lives matter is a total bullshit obama lie!
65 in Ohio, played a round of golf yesterday.
I am dressed and ready to hit the links in Ohio today. May be a little soggy.
70 freakin' degrees in south-central PA on the 2nd day of (official) Winter. Had the windows open all night, no chills, and they're still open. Nice to have fresh air, but WTF? I recall as a kid in MD to the south it snowing around Halloween in the mid 1960's
Damn weatherman is like a bureaucrat; gets paid whether he's right or not.
Bravo, zerohedge. Superior journalism right here.
Yep, great article ... will have to turn on some news channel on TV to learn more /snark
I've been following Zerohedge since the old google blogger days, my how the time has flown. Without hesitation this is my go to spot for relative news and even more than that for what's found in the comment section. Merry Christmas Bitchez!!!
P.S. what ever happened to TruthInSunshine???
Money always seems to turn up missing. But that's ok, we'll pay it back for you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVpSBUgbxBU
yeah, funny how that funny money disappears. A coworker who did a couple of lovely tours in Iraq was telling me about his seeing the pallets of 'money'. Guess he had to survive some 10 IED explosions of their convoys to live to tell the story. He didn't have much fun pulling half of a buddy's body out of a vehicle. He struggles these days but seems to be doing pretty good overall compared to many.
Another example of the Israel-authored US sanctions against Iran have the opposite effect as intended. Iran probably kept a shitload of that gold and is now one of the top owners of physical bullion.
I guess the one question I have regarding this is:
What changed?
We're talking about a highly connected criminal scheme that goes right to the top of three separate countries.
So what changed recently to cause them to pull the plug and abscond when they could have apparently kept it up forever?
Enter the Russkies ...
Could be ?
Merry Christmas to All and to All a Good Night
someone raised rates 0.25%
I wonder why they didn't use that ultimate money, SHITCOIN?
Aaah, memories.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-BFxLdkXeRqk/Vnz8Gz0EsgI/AAAAAAAAOBw/3o83_jsm5e...
Happy Corzinedmas ;-)
We corzined some folks..
Apologies if I stole that.
I wonder how many US Senators and Congressmen got F#@ed on that deal? I'm sure the list is long!!
Read Sibel Edmonds' stuff and you find many in Cuntgress have been compromised by Turkish intelligence...and the Feebs (FBI) know it, but will do nothing. They got their pinkies singed from the Larry Franklin Espionage affair and won't make that mistake again. The guard dog got his balls cut off, bronzed, and now reside on a wall, somewhere in the Middle East. The guard dog has become a lot more 'manageable' and only snarls and snaps at those who pay the tax bill for feeding him, now.
This article is too damned long!
Too bad moron.
TV news will tell you all about it in 2.5 seconds just before the Kardashian story
This was the best ZH article I have ever read. Damn I about fell off my couch! Then I had to get on my real fricken computer to post this comment. Anyhow Zen Cross is right. It is going to take months to unwind everything that was in this article. Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant Tyler(s)!
There may be huge skims, but the article's geo-political trade rationale is dubious. Gold reserves are not being transferred. Gold as a commodity is. So trade deficits always remained. This is a Central Bank scam - burdening the populace - note the lira value has since plunged.
Where does the gold originate? If not Turkey, then a trade deficit still exists as Turkey imports gold to then export. Or Turkey exports its lira or USD to buy gold in Dubai to transfer to Iran (again, a trade deficit). In fact, a deficit is enlarged with a further skim. And it is a deficit that the Central Bank created for its masters.
What happened to the imported oil from Iran? If it stayed in Turkey to be consumed, OK. If it exited, then the West never really had an oil embargo on Iran. This is all a hoax of a grander kind that facilliated skims that burdened the common man in overpriced oil and a soaring monetary base (whose inflatinary cost was hidden but is well seen now due to the lira losing half its value). It was a Central Bank raid on the people.
In other words, this is not about "gold". It's about skimming the common man, be he Turk or American and the Central Bank system is central to the crime. For oil and gold were but commodities that were transferred about with a facilitation by Central Banks, but the skim and gross inefficiency (be it fraud or legal skim) is a bill that was handed to the people.
At each skim turn, it requires a Central Bank to burden the local populace with a lien to facillitate the skim (because the gold is a commodity, not a transfer of sovereign or Central Bank reserves). Again, note that the lira has lost half its value. This is a Central Bank scam that ZeroHedge conflates with "gold". And if the oil left Turkey, or the refined product from it, the real story was it was a world class con from the start.
The bigger picture of this article is a stepping stone to the main event story about the integrity of Bitlie. Wait and see.
its a good thing the USSA has such a balanced trade policy, nothing bad could possibly come from it. /snark
plus over 8000 tons of gold, so we're looking pretty good.
Your comments sent me down some rabbit trails. Erdogan has his family positioned to be able to scrape off payment for oil trades in the region. We already know that Bilal is involved in smuggling and brokering. Erdogan's son-in-law is the new minister of energy. That alone grants potential cover for a world of shady deals.
Somehow "Silk Road" came to mind. While looking for oil pipelines from Iran to China, this one-minute video on China's "One Belt One Road Iniative" aka new silk road eventually came up. Gold is mentioned instead of the usual gibberish about strong banking ties.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRpEffj1a0g
This brought up the idea of the yellow gold v. black gold trade and how that is reflected in currencies.
Here is an article from almost a year ago that goes into that topic. Zerohedge receives honorable mention. I don't agree with 100% of what is written, but there is some interesting analysis of how the manipulations in the oil trade and the devaluation of the Russian ruble are working out on a practical basis for Russia.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/russia-and-china-the-dawning-of-a-new-monet...
There is also a bit about the hits that Texas and North Dakota are taking on the jobs front. What the author fails to acknowledge is that many of the people who have lost their jobs in North Dakota are Texans who were working out of state.
I don't know exactly how all these tangents fit with the original post, but they are all tangled up together. Keep pulling on the threads, Tylers.
Paper gold ain't really gold. Physical. Never forget it.
Good news, the Arab bank is in Switzerland. I am sure the BIS, a large and impartial bankers bank, will get to the bottom of this injustice and make sure the little guys get their gold bank.
If you steal an orange .... they cut off the offending hand .... if you steal a bank and all the depositor's gold .... they don't even cut off your royal allowance .... they are a more protected class .... than America's entitlement royalty "N.I.G.G.E.R.S" (National Institutionalized Government Generosity Entitlement Recipients Services) .... Merry Federal Holiday "Socialist Solstice" ?
Every black chile .... is born with a $10 million dollar, open ended, all inclusive silver spoon annuity .... in his mouf ?
Merry Christmas, Tyler.
hey maybe Tyler doesn't celebrate xmas...
ever think of that?
If I was to hold any form of gold in the bank, I may as well just keep regular account of fiat money. Only stupid would keep physical outside his personal safe.
MIT developed this so .govie can find your safe or bullion.
http://www.gazettenet.com/news/stateregion/20183907-95/x-ray-vision-beco...
We MUST take MIT out!
Dont worry, thats not real x-ray it uses wireless radio to track mainly motion. I actually like that tech a lot.
Observe the density of objects with mass! With this you can locate objects with large mass and when it's refined you will be able to locate anything with 'SPECIFIC' mass!
FUCK OFF!
--GOD
...or outside of their favourite fishing spot.
I'll give you $100,000 to renounce your US citizenship .... and return to Africa .... no thanks .... I'm happy with my $10 million annuity .... I think I'll keep it .... and I hope to receive a generous slavery reparations lump sum .... if Hillary is elected ?
Nobody will be collecting welfare checks if there are no bureaucrats paid to dispense them. Tax revenues to pay Fed and State bureaucrat salaries are falling due to the same thing happening numerically to the workforce.
Printing fiat moolah will not be the logical answer... therefore it will be the political one.
That's some heavy suitcases. Must have had reinforced handles.
You should have seen the guys carrying the suitcases.
Turkish wrestlers, maybe? I can believe it, they're some very strong guys.
Nah...50 kilo, or 110 lbs is like carrying two bags of water softener salt . One bag in each hand. Me ol's granny could do it.
Wow, you must be Li'l Abner!
Forgive the ignorance of a lowly stacker, but aren't these guys who absconded with the booty sitting on top of what amounts to a golden nuke?
Nukes require a degree of 'critical mass' to start fission. It seems to me that collecting that much Au in one place under such circumstances is an equivalent. In which case, the danger of 'fallout' isn't from thermal blast and radioisotopes, but waves of financial catastrophe unleashed in various markets around the planet if they decide to take an auric dump. With the current (artificial) price depression, that would trash the miners for good and all.
And the idea that the US was somehow snookered into not seeing this one coming is just beyond credibility. The Fed may make noises about gold being a 'barbarous relic' but they're not above meddling in the gold market, as the GATA boys pointed out in their lawsuit and a rep from the USG said as much in response to it. The Fed had to know something was up. Which makes them accessories.
Like the old saying goes, with a fish, the rot starts at the head. This goes to the very top.
GOLD AnditsgonE
Diplodicus, Tom, Off topic, no?
Please spare us.
And long of wind.
the oldest form of trade known to man: gold.
This hyperbole is a marker. Gold isn't even among the top 200 oldest forms of trade known to man.
I really like Marco Polo's discovery of bark of trees used as currency in Asia, the bankers ran with that ever since and here we are. /snark
Did those Asians have the gold option available to them and choose not to use it? If so, why not?
Or had they not even discovered gold yet? If so, this proves the hyperbole is a false assertion ... even worse than an simple exaggeration.
The day will come (soon) when the manufature of gold and metals in general will be produced quickly and inexpensivly.
How does one "manufacture" gold?
He said "manufature" what ever that means?
The major shareholders could be sent a gift from this delivery service... just saying...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Barret_M82_DA-ST-92-07336.jpg
I made a "solstice resolution" to buy at least 1000-ounces of Silver and to try and get as many different fractional ounces of gold coins as I can with fiat over the next few weeks/months. I think we migght be entering another period like back in y2k with multiple financial bubbles about to pop.
"Abu Dhabi, and a majority shareholder, involved in this unprecedented raiding of a company that was instrumental in the Turkey-to-Iran gold smuggling campaign?"
Do you think this company was allowed to vaporize because of the political secrets it held?
For those poor fools (like me) entrusting some of our PM holdings with Canada based publically traded BitGold and GoldMoney (independently audited, third party verified, vaulted by Brinks, insured by Lloyds of London, blah blah blah).....are we any safer?
As part of an effort to DIVERSIFY RISK, do I want to have all my assets in my physical possession when I could be the victim of a home invasion or natural disaster?
Clearly there was a lack of transparency and accountability in this Dubai operation. Will the same eventually be the case with BitGold and other "independently audited" entities trafficking in gold?
One advisor of mine says that as gov's go broke there will be a corresponding break down in the rule of law.
For those who don't have time to read this whole thing, let me summarize: If you don't hold it, you don't own it.
then who stole from whom ?
(this make's me question bullionvault)
But Armstrong says we're all nuts.......and this is my first post on ZH but I've lurked for years. Ive noticed as time passes that the plants and trolls have increased, and the slant of some durden articles has a tone contrary to the 'original' thinking....sigh....anything that draws a following eventually gets 'co-opted' to some degree.
BUT, there are some insightful comments that still make it worth it.
Please explain in more detail the coopting occuring here. I agree with you, but would like to see additional insights shared. This site tolerates "false flag" comments that finger gov's and corp's as being behind most modern tragedies (cf. "order out of chaos"). But perhaps it's more honey pot than movement building. All I know for sure is that people who are against war and debt-based currencies get assassinated (cf. Martin Luther King, Jr., JFK, and Khadaffi). The bad guys tend to have longer lives than they deserve. But in their Machiavellian/Darwinian mind-set, might makes right, or "if the king does it, it's the law," i.e., a world devoid of natural law. That is why the elites undergo their "cremation of care" ceremony at Bohemian Grove every year. For modern "leadership" having a conscience is a liability.
Armstrong has a way of predicting "everything". If gold goes up he points to a random prediction he made prior that says "gold will go up under these conditions.". If gold tanks he says " the gold bugs are not to be trusted, I told you all gold would drop!". I've followed him for years.
To be fair, Armstrong gave excellent advice 2009 - now, overall. Very solid advice and a unique perspective. He also charges I think $2500 per person for admission to his speeches, and claims hundreds of attendees so he is smarter than you or I.
How barbarous...
Well, there went my own gold savings. :( That's the last time I will ever trust an Arab with anything of value.
Bring silver and gold, so it is written ;-)
Yep,2yrs after his birth.
(forgot incense and myrrh,)the latter as valuable as Au.
TEHRAN (FNA)- Turkish troops violated the territorial integrity of another neighboring country; this time Syria.
Turkey's incursion into Hasaka province has been done to station troops in a Mountainous region close to Sarmasakh border village in the Northern part of Hasaka province, the Arabic-language Hadas news channel reported on Thursday.
The report noted that the Turkish forces are now as close as 150 meters from a strategic hill near Sarmasakh village.
The Turkish incursion into Syria comes as tensions between the Ankara and Baghdad have increased dramatically since Turkey reinforced its military deployment in Iraq with about 150 soldiers backed by artillery and around 25 tanks in a base near the ISIL-controlled northern Iraqi city of Mosul on December 4.
The Iraqi government considered this action as a hostile act in violation of its sovereignty and demanded the immediate withdrawal of Turkish troops.
On Sunday, the president of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, announced the withdrawal of military troops from Iraq to reduce tensions following international criticism. The decision to pull out troops also came after Iraq brought the issue to the United Nations Security Council.
Yet, part of the Turkish troops are still in Northern Iraq.
when are things going to start unravelling, i really think we are on borrowed time and as the saying goes if you dont hold it, you dont own it, lol i will be laughing all the way to the bank
Audit the tungsten
I'm sure they do have one or two CONeX futures contract to make good for it though. BAHAHAHAHA...
They should try out Bitcoin, no need to smuggle it in your ass...
Pulling a fast one under the US nose, Turkey, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Iran, Russia, China, Switzerland......Gold makes the world go round..
Gold! Wubalubadubdub Bitches!!!!
These "so-called" friendly Gulf State nations of the US should have a low yield nuke or two dropped on them. I'm with Trump, the spoils of war go to the Victor! Instead we have China exploiting the mineral wealth in Afghanistan and until ISIS showed up the oil contracts in Iraq went to other countries. Our Country is led by a bunch of Dupes and us Sheep do nothing about it but complain - We deserve what we get. Time to get all the vipers we call the Bureaucracy in DC and string them up! We can do it Pre-Crash or Post-Crash, but it will have to be done! FUCK YOU NSA!
unbelievable how practically the world jumps on the bandwagon of xmas...
twitter just made me sick today...
muslims celebrating xmas
native americans celebrating xmas
even atheists...'
fuck this shit
i complained there and i will complain here too
don't fucking wish me a merry xmas
i am tired of this shit
Donmeh jews, Wahabi jews, London jew, NYC jew, Euro jews...all this wants to kill humankind for its own nazionist, with its paid pet career politicians in tow. That is the Pharisee, the new Rome...its Artificial Intelligence.
Warned you. Comply or defy.
Nasty little bitchez.
I am not happy that they have upset Christmas 2015. I want them dead. So it will be. They massacre Christians in the Middle East. Their nasty Archbishop Cantebury is jewish, and other crypto jews make endless war, and kill Christians, kill muslims, kill others.
Don't get angry. Get ready.
For anything to change in a positive direction the mainstream media has to fall. That has to be the first step.
You know that won't happen as a first step.
Ropes and lamp posts is more likely, but not as you imagine. This time will be different for the Ratchilds, Bronfman, Oppenhemier, Warburg, Bush tribe and others.
Plan A or Plan B. Viking or Christian.
Fuck off. Jesus threw the moneychangers out of the temple. Your sort deserve a short rope and a long drop, nazionists.
and for that, the Jews had the Romans kill him
Tax me on gold sale should I decide to do so. Poof...the tax is gone. Want to tax me on a firearm transfer? Poof that is gone. Ammo tax? Poof that is gone too.
Good luck trying to tax us.
No ...
People like you ...
(they'll just kill you)
Then they will never know where the money went.
I have met some of these motherfuckers (not the peeps in the story but similar), and yes, they don't give a shit about anything. They have so much money they don't know what to do, cars property, women(men), nothing is enough.
It's actually hillarious, they are the most unhappy, unsatisfied people in the world.
The government should make all customers whole to maintain Dubai's reputation especially since the sultans name is attached to the company. If they cannot afford to do so, it means Dubai is in extremely bad shape. For a small cooutry that is interested in being a financial hub, reputation and trust is everything.
No banking embargo against ISIS eh? Because they sell Syrian and Iraqi oil in US$ eh? Should've seen that coming.
Turkey is the only muslim nation that is part of NATO. WHY? A trojan horse planted by the muslims to inflitrate and destroy the west. Turkey is the conduit to grease the wheel of muslim nations to circumvent any sanctions or boycott by the west. Take Turkey out of NATO and the muslim nations will decay back into 7th century