$300,000 in gold missing from Ukraine Central Bank after swapped for lead bricks Cunning fraudsters have conned the Ukraine Central Bank branch in Odessa into buying $300,000 worth of gold which turned out to be lead daubed with gold paint. "A criminal case has been opened and we are now carrying out an investigation to identify those involved in the crime," a spokesman for the Odessa police force is quoted by Vesti. The news was first reported by Odessa's State Ministry of Internal Affairs. A preliminary investigation suggests the gang had someone working for them inside the bank that forged the necessary paperwork to allow the sale of the fake gold bullion. It's also been discovered that bank staff were not regularly checked when entering or exiting the premises. Since the discovery, the National Bank no longer buys precious metal over the counter, as it cannot be sure of its authenticity, says the First Deputy Head of the National Bank of Ukraine, Aleksandr Pisaruk. The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) has confirmed the theft of several kilograms of gold in the Odessa region. The cashier involved has apparently fled to Crimea, Vesti Ukraine reports. Criminal proceedings began on November 18, even though the scam apparently took place between August and October. In November, the Central Bank reportedly lost $12.6 billion in gold reserves, putting the total stockpile at just over $120 million. However, the Central Bank reports that foreign currency and gold reserves stood at $9.97 billion at the end of November. http://rt.com/business/216687-gold-missing-ukraine-bank/ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Where has all Ukraine's gold gone? Ukraine's Central Bank chief has divulged some shocking intel: its gold stockpile has reached a new nadir - almost zero. Since the beginning of the year, gold reserves have dropped nearly 16-fold, which begs the question, where did all of it go? "Official statistics of the National Bank show that the amount of gold in the vaults drastically fell, and it is unclear where it went. At the beginning of this month, the volume of gold was about $1 billion, or 8 percent of the total gold reserves," the head of Ukraine's National Bank, Valeria Gontareva, said in an interview with Ukraine's Kharkiv TV. As of November 1, the latest available data, foreign currency reserves stood at $12.6 billion, which puts Ukraine's national gold stockpile at just $123.6 million, ZeroHedge reported. However, this figure contradicts the $988.7 million, which is the level gold should stand at, if the ratio of gold to total reserves was 8 percent. In February, before then-President Vicktor Yanukovich was toppled, gold reserves stood at about 21 tons, according to then chairman of the National Bank of Ukraine Sergey Arbuzov. One theory is that Ukraine decided to shift its gold reserves to the US shortly after the presidential coup when Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk held a meeting with President Obama. At the end of February, gold stood at $1.8 billion, or about 12 percent of reserves. The Central Bank reported that reserves stood at $1.6 billion in both July and August, and $1.7 billion in September. In October, the bank was forced to sell $874 million worth of gold to service domestic and foreign public debts, according to the International Monetary Fund. One of the main functions of the National Bank of Ukraine is to accumulate and store foreign exchange reserves and precious metals. In May, the previous bank head, Stepan Kubiv, said that Ukraine planned to use part of its first tranche of International Monetary Fund loan to boost gold and currency reserves to stabilize the ailing currency, the hryvnia. The IMF, which has denied Ukraine loans before due to corruption, in April pledged $17 billion over two years to help the country trying to closer align itself with Europe, and not Russia. The bank stopped supporting the currency in mid-November when it fell into complete free fall. The hryvnia has lost 50 percent of its value against the dollar since the beginning of the year. "The devaluation of the hryvnia is now 100 percent. At the last minute, businesses began to panic. Even after the devaluation of 50 percent, which began in July, we were able to stabilize the situation, but then the war started," Gontareva said. Ukraine's economy has spun out of control since revolution and war gripped the country. The new government is facing rock-bottom reserves, sky-high inflation, contracting growth, natural gas shortages, and a looming default on debts. http://rt.com/business/207347-ukraine-gold-reserves-gone/
