Clueless on Any Gold In Fort Knox
Former US Mint director Ed Moy has made numerous false and self-contradictory statements regarding the gold at Fort Knox – a facility managed by the US Mint.
The is post is a sequel to A First Glance At US Official Gold Reserves Audits, Second Thoughts On US Official Gold Reserves Audits and US Government Lost 7 Fort Knox Gold Audit Reports. Also related is Where Did The Gold In Fort Knox Come From? Part One.
Recap and Introduction
Early 2014 my first post was published about the audits performed on 95 % of US official gold reserves – the 7,628 tonnes stored by the US Mint – this is referred to as Deep Storage gold, 4,583 tonnes is at Fort Knox, 1,364 tonnes in Denver, 1,682 tonnes at West Point. In total US official gold reserves account for the 8,134 tonnes, owned by the US Treasury. My focus has always been the gold at the Fort Knox depository, as this is the largest facility. At the very surface the official story presented by the US government regarding the existence of Deep Storage gold seems credible. However, while investigating we could observe the official story is anything but credible.
During my research I’ve reached out to Edmund C. Moy, 38th Director of the US Mint from 2006 until 2011, who was very helpful in answering all of my questions over Twitter and email. Although this gentleman has been very cooperative, many of his statements in various media and emails appeared to be false and self-contradictory. For the sake of simplicity we will focus on Moy’s statements at a coin expo in 2013, an article he wrote for Newsmax Finance early 2014 and emails he wrote me in response to my questions.
1. False Statements At Coin Expo November 2013
It al started with a video from the Whitman Coin And Collectables Exposition in Baltimore November 2013. Below you can find the video:
1.1. What Did Moy See At Fort Knox?
Let’s go through this, quote one: “I’ve been inside of Fort Knox, and I’ve seen the gold. So I know it’s actually there… I can personally vouch there is gold at Fort Knox and I personally have seen it”. On camera Moy states he has seen a good portion of the gold at Fort Knox, which has assured him to vouch for the existence of the gold. Although a visual inspection of 446,698 gold bars will not pass as an audit, what we’re analyzing is, what did Moy actually see? From the video you would think he was granted access to the vaults and properly saw (and touched) the gold in all compartments.
As was published in a previous post, allegedly 100 % of the gold at Fort Knox has been audited in between 1974 and 1986 during the Continuing Audit Of U.S.-Owned Gold program. After these audits all vault compartments were placed under Official Joint Seal (before the Continuing Audits program the compartments were under Official Joint Seal as well). From film footage inside Fort Knox in 1974 we can see a corridor with vault compartments covered with the seals.
At the end of the corridor we can see vault compartment 33. In front of the vault door there is a ribbon waxed to an Official Joint Seal. It is impossible to open the vault without impairing the ribbon. We can see no window in the vault door of compartment 33 (first pictures), only a very tiny peephole (last picture). At this point we can raise the question to what degree Moy has seen the gold while vault compartments are sealed and there are only tiny peepholes in the vault doors. From my judgment looking through a peephole at best confirms there is yellow stuff on the other side.
The Treasury Office Inspector General (OIG), which is currently responsible for the Deep Storage gold audits, has told me it is absolutely not routine to break the seals. Neither for inspection by a US Mint Director nor for the President of the United States will the seals be broken. There is one possibility Moy could have properly seen the gold; in 2010 the US Mint renewed all the Official Joint Seals, the ones put in place in between 1974 and 1986 with the delicate ribbon and wax were replaced for new plasticized seals with steel cables. (Yes, technically at that moment the seals were renewed all 42 Deep Storage compartments could have been opened.)
There is a possibility Moy properly saw the gold if he was present when the seals were broken and the doors opened before the new seals were put in place. At the Gold Transparency Act in 2011 the OIG stated:
More recently the Mint decided to replace all of the previously placed Official Joint Seals with new seals. The new seals are more durable, having a double security barrier seal that can only be removed by two cuts with a strong cable cutter.
The Mint replaced all of the previously placed Official Joint Seals with new ones during fiscal year 2010. The seal replacement process consisted of two steps: (1) inspection of all previously placed Official Joint Seals on all the compartments containing deep storage gold to determine whether they had been altered or compromised in any way, and (2) placement of a new Official Joint Seal. The seal inspection and replacement process was carried out for all 42 deep storage gold compartments, in the presence of a Treasury OIG auditor, by a Mint headquarter staff person, representing the Mint Director, and a Mint storage facility staff person, representing the facility’s Plant Manager. For each Official Joint Seal removed, the Mint headquarters representative, the Mint storage facility representative, and the observing Treasury OIG auditor signed an inspection report; the same parties also signed the new Official Joint Seal that replaced the one removed.
The report mentions “a Mint headquarter staff person, representing the Mint Director” was present when the seals were renewed, not the Mint Director himself. Concluding Moy was not present when the seals were renewed, therefore he only could have seen the gold through the tiny peepholes.
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