Cyber Fraud At SWIFT – $81 Million Stolen From Central Bank

SWIFT (Wikipedia)

 

Swift, the vital global financial network that western financial services companies, institutions and banks use for all payments and transfer billions of dollars every day, warned its customers yesterday evening that it was aware of cyber fraud and a number of recent “cyber incidents” where attackers had sent fraudulent messages over its system and $81 million was apparently stolen from a central bank.

As reported by Reuters, the disclosure came as law enforcement agencies investigate the February cyber theft of $81 million from the Bangladesh central bank account at the New York Federal Reserve Bank. Swift has acknowledged that the scheme involved altering Swift software on Bangladesh Bank’s computers to hide evidence of fraudulent transfers.

Gold Repatriation From Federal Reserve Would Shatter US Economic Hegemony

Repatriation of foreign gold reserves from the Federal Reserve would undermine the geopolitical role of the US economy in the world.

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The largest gold reserve stored by the Fed belongs to Germany, at 674 tons. On the whole, the country holds nearly 3,500 tons of gold. However, both sides were content with the situation: the US received money for storage, and Germany knew its reserves were finely protected.

Away From Dollar: Russia, China to Create Entirely Different Gold Market

Sometime in the short-term of mid-term future, China and Russia will come out and say “We have all (or most) of the world’s gold. We will now make the rules.”

This also could be the “event” that a lot of experts are talking about regarding late September and early October crisis predictions. Former Reagan advisor, Martin Armstrong predicts October 1st, 2015 (2015.75) as a turning point in world history, for example.

Ironically, this article comes from a state-run source, which could be the Kremlin’s own way of dropping a hint.

 

While key Western banks are artificially restraining gold prices to breathe life into the diluted and devalued dollar system, Russia, China and other emerging economies are involved in “the genial move” to establish an entirely different gold market, F. William Engdahl underscores.

Key central banks, particularly the Federal Reserve and Bank of England, and Western market players have long been accused of clandestine gold price manipulating aimed at preserving the dollar’s role “as world reserve currency primus,” American-German economic researcher and historian F. William Engdahl writes.

“The COMEX gold futures market in New York and the Over-the-Counter (OTC) trades cleared through the London Bullion Market Association do set prices which are followed most widely in the world. They are also markets dominated by a handful of huge players, the six London Bullion Market Association gold clearing banks — the corrupt JP MorganChase bank; the scandal-ridden UBS bank of Zurich; The Bank of Nova Scotia — ScotiaMocatta, the world’s oldest bullion bank which began as banker to the British East India Company, the group that ran the China Opium Wars; the scandal-ridden Deutsche Bank; the scandal-ridden Barclays Bank of London; HSBC of London, the house bank of the Mexican drug cartels; and the scandal and fraud-ridden Societe Generale of Paris,” Engdahl narrated.

Furthermore, Western banks are issuing numerous paper “gold-futures” and other speculative contracts which are in fact disconnected from real physical gold.

Cyberwarfare Threat To Nuclear, Banking and Financial System

Indeed, our modern western financial and banking system with its massive dependency on single interface websites, servers and the internet faces serious risks that few analysts have yet to appreciate and evaluate.We previously referred to Russian Prime Minister Medvedev’s allusion to cyber warfare when he stated the Russia’s response to U.S. attempts to have it locked out of the SWIFT system that the Russian response “economically and otherwise – will know no limits.”

Dormant malware, apparently of Russian origin had previously been discovered buried in the software that runs the Nasdaq stock exchange according to Bloomberg.

Given that a military confrontation is not desired by Russia it is likely that cyber-warfare will be part of Russian arsenal in any confrontation with the U.S. and NATO countries.

Ukraine Admits Its Gold Is Gone: “There Is Almost No Gold Left In The Central Bank Vault”

Much like Lybia’s after Ghadaffi was overthrown and killed… gone. If one had to guess, it’s sitting either in an American or European vault. The New York Federal Reserve, or Bundesbank — take your pick. Please see the source link for additional informative charts.

 

 

 

Back in March, at a time when the IMF reported that Ukraine’s official gold holdings as of the end of February, so just as the State Department-facilitated coup against former president Victor Yanukovich was concluding, amounted to 42.3 tonnes or 8% of reserves…

…and notably under the previous “hated” president, Ukraine gold’s reserves had constantly increased hitting a record high just before the presidential coup…

Russia Buys 900,000 Ounces Of Gold Worth $1.17 Billion In April

The Russian central bank has again increased its gold reserves by another 900,000 ounces worth $1.17 billion in April.

Russia’s gold reserves rose to 34.4 million troy ounces in April, from 33.5 million troy ounces in March, the Russian central bank announced on its website yesterday. The value of its gold holdings rose to $44.30 billion as of May 1, compared with $43.36 billion a month earlier, it added.

Russia Raises Gold Holdings By 7.247 Tonnes To Over 1,040 Tonnes In February

Yesterday U.S. President Barack Obama warned Russian President Vladimir Putin that Russia would face more sanctions if it moved further into eastern Ukraine after its annexation of Crimea. Worryingly for residents of New York and for financial markets, Obama also warned that he was more worried about the risk of a nuclear bomb going off in Manhattan then he was about Russia.

Geopolitical risk in the form of terrorism, financial and economic war and actual war remains high and should support gold.

Russia has increased its gold holdings by 7.247 tonnes to 1,042 tonnes in February. Turkey and Kazakhstan also raised their bullion reserves, data from the International Monetary Fund showed today. Turkey’s gold holdings rose 9.292 tonnes to 497.869 tonnes, the data showed.

Many analysts are ignoring the important context of today’s new geopolitical backdrop. Russia alone has some $400 billion in foreign exchange reserves – mostly in U.S. dollars. If they were to diversify just 5%, worth some $20 billion, of those reserves into gold – it would be equal to nearly 500 tonnes of gold or nearly 25% of global annual production.

Russia bought another 7.247 tonnes of gold in February. It will be interesting to see what Russian demand is in March and indeed in the coming months. Sanctions could lead to materially higher demand from the Russian central bank, Bank Rossii.

“Major Shortage Of Physical Gold” Has Fed Greatly Concerned

As the world awaits the Fed’s decision, today a 42-year market veteran told King World News there will be no tapering and that the gold will soar “after the Fed has surprised the market tomorrow.”  Greyerz also warned KWN that to further complicate matters for the Fed, there is a “major shortage of physical gold” ahead of their decision.  Below is what Egon von Greyerz, who is founder of Matterhorn Asset Management out of Switzerland, had to say.

Greyerz:  “Eric, it is important to consider what the truly important factors are that will determine what will happen to the world, its people, and to the global economy.  If we look around, what do we find?  We find a world that is financially, politically, and morally bankrupt.

GOLD BANK RUN ACCELERATING…NOW THE SWISS WANT THEIR GOLD BACK- ALL 1040 TONS OF IT!

It should be interesting to see how the US will handle massive orders from multiple countries at once. There seems to be a momentum building among nations for wanting their gold out of the US and things might become even more interesting after all the chatter in recent months about gold reserves in the US being very low, non-existent, or gold bars filled with tungsten.

With last week’s announcement by the Bundesbank of the repatriation of 674 tons of German gold from Paris and NY over the next 7 years, we predicted that an avalanche of gold repatriation requests would soon be made to the BOE and the NYFed.

It appears that Switzerland may be next to the game, much to the dismay of the SNB.  The Swiss gold initiative, an initiative to Secure the Swiss National Bank’s Gold Reserves, launched in March 2012 by four members of the Swiss parliament, has grown to 90,000 supporters.

Once 100,000 supporters are achieved, the Swiss Parliament must take up the referendum. 

It Begins: Bundesbank To Commence Repatriating Gold From New York Fed

In what could be a watershed moment for the price, provenance, and future of physical gold, not to mention the “stability” of the entire monetary regime based on rock solid, undisputed “faith and credit” in paper money, German Handelsblatt reports in an exclusive that the long suffering German gold, all official 3,396 tons of it, is about to be moved. Specifically, it is about to be partially moved out of the New York Fed, where the majority, or 45% of it is currently stored, as well as the entirety of the 11% of German gold held with the Banque de France, and repatriated back home to Buba in Frankfurt, where just 31% of it is held as of this moment. And while it is one thing for a “crazy, lunatic” dictator such as Hugo Chavez to pull his gold out of the Bank of England, it is something entirely different, and far less dismissible, when the bank with the second most official gold reserves in the world proceeds to formally pull some of its gold from the bank with the most. In brief: this is a momentous development, one which may signify that the regime of mutual assured and very much telegraphed – because if the central banks don’t have faith in one another, why should anyone else? – trust in central banks by other central banks is ending.