By Koos Jansen

Interim research update.

As readers might have saw on these pages, since 2014 I’ve been investigating the inventory audits of the US official gold reserves, which should prove the existence of the metal that embodies the credibility of the world reserve currency. My first article showed the official narrative: all the bars of in total 8,134 tonnes of gold spread over depositories at Fort Knox, West Point, Denver and New York, have been carefully counted, weighed, assayed and inventoried in between 1974 and 2008.

In subsequent posts I’ve exposed there is a vast array of problems to be found with the physical audits. Through several Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) request, I had obtained information that severely damaged the integrity of the official narrative. Example given, one of my FOIAs that requested the audit reports drafted in between 1974 and 1986, when 7,504 tonnes was audited, revealed the US government had “lost” nearly all documents.

To get to the bottom of this I filed countless new FOIAs in the past months at the legal owner of the gold, the US Treasury, the custodian, the US Mint, and the head auditor, the Office Inspector General of the Treasury, in order to obtain every single piece of documentation I could think of that is related to these audits. Pretty soon, by putting all pieces of new information together I realized I was entangled in a conundrum of giant proportions as many documents contradicted each other. Eventually I submitted a request for a publicly unknown report, which I read about in a document I had obtained by another FOIA. I asked the Mint for “the [US Mint] Director’s Representative … written report to the [US Mint] Chief Financial Officer (CFO) notifying the CFO of the completion of the verification” for the years in between 1993 and 2008. Surprisingly, the US Mint wrote me my request would cost $3,144.96 dollars!

This amount of money is ridiculous. First of all, the documents should be readily available. Perhaps any digitalization costs would incur a few hundred dollars at most. Second, the Mint wrote the estimate of $3,144.96 dollars “includes 40 hours of … search time”. But how can it take 40 hours to find a few pieces of paper? It also wrote, my request would include an estimated 1,200 pages of documentation. But how do they know there are 1,200 pages if they first have to search 40 hours for it?

In any case, I decided to start a crowdfunding campaign last August to collect the money. After I tweeted about the campaign it quickly went viral. The news was spread on websites such as TFMetals, GoldMoney, GATA and GoldChartsRus – among others – and within a few hours the funding was completed, which shows to the power of our gold community.

After I received the money from the crowdfunding website I asked the US Mint for a bank account number to wire the funds. But the Mint replied I could only pay by check! Check? I was born in 1981, I have never seen a check in my life. Was this another way to obstruct my investigation? Most likely. It’s impossible the US Mint does not have a bank account, and every account has a number. I still can’t see why they don’t accept wired money.

But I had no option to go to a branch of my bank located in my area. When I walked in explained and the situation, the gentleman that helped me told me he never handled a check neither. This gentleman was replaced by an older one. There was a slight possibility he could create a check for me, but he had to look into it somewhat. Two hours later I walked out of his office carrying a promise the dollars would be transferred within a week.

A few days later the funds had been subtracted from my bank account, and I asked the US Mint for the first time (that was 11 September) if the check had arrived, but they replied it hadn’t. For weeks, mysteriously the check was “missing”. Only went I emailed the Mint with the email address of my local bank employee included, to have my bank and the Mint work it out together, the Mint confirmed on 28 September 2016 the funds had been received:

We have received your check and are now working to get the requested documents out to you.

That was 28 September, it’s now 15 November! I still haven’t received the documents from the US Mint. Naturally, I have sent more emails to ask what’s the status of my request, but no reply until now.

Or the Mint will have to confirm at some point they can’t deliver to me the paper work – maybe they got “second thoughts”. In that case they have to wire back the funds and I will have all funds send back to everybody that donated. Or they will honor my request in the coming weeks and I will include the findings in a very very long read I’ve been working on.

So, that’s all I know at this stage. Please have a little more patience. Thanks again everybody that donated. Either way, I will publish an article to reveal the results of all my FOIA and the many “problems” I found in the official narrative.

Koos Jansen
E-mail Koos Jansen on: koos.jansen@bullionstar.com

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 -- Published: Tuesday, 15 November 2016 | E-Mail  | Print  | Source: GoldSeek.com

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