One of the first articles I ever read about gold had to do with the gold which apparently disappeared in the wreckage of the World Trade Center. It seems, based on newspaper articles, that there had been $950 million worth of gold and silver under WTC 4 on 9/11. It was located a few floors below street level, protected within bomb-proof vaults. While severely damaged, WTC 4 did not completely collapse, and the metal should have been fully recoverable, even if it had melted. Gold and silver are fairly inert and wouldn't have reacted with other materials.
Giuliani, however, was quoted saying that around $230 million worth of precious metals had been recovered. The question was, what happened to the other gold and silver? Doesn't that leave hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of precious metals missing? Had there been a heist of massive proportions, under cover of the attacks on that day?
One answer, the one that seems most likely to me, is not as thrilling. These vaults were apparently Comex vaults (Comex = commodities exchange). In the metals investment world, it's widely known that the Comex does not have all the gold and silver they claim to have. They allow people to think they're buying gold or silver, when in fact the physical metal they believe they're buying does not actually exist in Comex vaults. See, usually people will buy and sell this supposed gold and/or silver without ever taking real possession of the stuff, because that's a major hassle-- you need Brinks trucks and insurance and you pay fees, and they don't make it convenient by any means. Basically, all these people think they own metal, but they're just taking Comex's word for it. "Oh sure," Comex says, "we've got your 100 ounces of gold here, right in our vaults... it's got your name on it, scout's honor." But the GATA organization and some recent testimony provide evidence that Comex doesn't have that metal. Because (in recent years) only about 1% of purchasers actually demand to take physical possession for themselves, the Comex has never been definitively caught in its lies. It's like a bank that only has $1 for every $100 customers believe they have on deposit. (And don't think that isn't happening too!)
This 9/11 story of the missing metals suggests that even back in 2001 -- when gold and silver were dirt cheap and nobody wanted them, when demand was almost non-existent and you could hardly give the stuff away -- even back then it would appear that the Comex had claimed to possess more physical gold and silver than it really had. Specifically, they had claimed to have 3 or 4 times more than they did. Today, that recent testimony I mentioned above suggests that they claim to have 100 times more than they actually do. And that, my friends, is a balloon waiting to be popped. The jig will be up soon.
A heist makes a great Hollywood movie, but I'm afraid this is just your generic Wall St fraud.
