Second Thoughts On US Official Gold Reserves Audits
What is not often covered in the media or blogosphere are the audits of the US official gold reserves stored at the US Mint, which is the custodian for 95 % (7716 tonnes) of the stash – nowadays also referred to as custodial deep storage, and at the Federal Reserve Bank Of New York that safeguards the remaining 5 % (418 tonnes). The lawful owner of the US official gold reserves is the US Treasury. Part one covered the most recent records I could find published by the US government, in this post we’ll examine more historical records and approach this matter from a more critical angle. Because of the amount of information I found this post is split in multiple parts.
What Is A Gold Audit?
From Wikipedia:
Auditing is defined as a systematic and independent examination of data, statements, records, operations and performances (financial or otherwise) of an enterprise for a stated purpose. In any auditing the auditor perceives and recognizes the propositions before him for examination, collects evidence, evaluates the same and on this basis formulates his judgment, which is communicated through his audit report.
Due to constraints, an audit seeks to provide only reasonable assurance that the statements are free from material error. Hence, statistical sampling is often adopted in audits.
To be sure, I’ve asked several bullion dealers about how their audits are being conducted. They all agreed an audit involves three parties: the owner of the gold, the custodian and an external (independent) auditor. The external auditor examines the gold, compares its findings with the statements of the custodian and then reports on the accuracy of the statements of the custodian to the owner of the gold. An example of an audit report by such an external auditor can be found here.
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