London not returning gold to Venezuela - a bell for Russia?

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

This interstate rudeness was demonstrated by Britain in relation to Venezuela. London, under a ridiculous pretext, refuses to give Caracas the Venezuelan gold that is stored on its territory. Paradoxically, what is happening is directly related to Russia.

Venezuela has been selling off its gold reserves for several years now - the economic situation in the country is difficult, and the state leadership seems to have no recipes for improving it. The gold reserve of the central bank of this country has decreased in recent years by more than 200 tons and continues to decline.

Venezuela kept its gold in Britain. The order to return the gold "to its homeland" was given by the previous president, Hugo Chavez, in 2011. “There is nothing better for storing Venezuela's gold reserves than our own country,” he said at the time.

Most of the gold bars Britain gave away without question. But in recent months, problems have begun. According to TASS, for more than two weeks the government of President Nicolas Maduro has been trying to return 14 tons of gold to Venezuela, but the Bank of England demands to answer how the Latin American country plans to dispose of the precious metal.

This, of course, is some kind of transcendental cynicism. One country gave another its gold and asks to return it, and she asks: "Why do you need it?" At the same time, the official reason for the refusal is "the impossibility of obtaining insurance, which is necessary for the transportation of such a large amount of gold."

Venezuela tried to get back its gold before the next US sanctions were imposed on it. If the European ones, which were extended just today, on November 6, are limited by the embargo on the supply of weapons, as well as equipment and equipment that can be used "for internal repression", then the American ones are much broader and include, among other things, a gold reserve.

On November 1, Donald Trump signed an executive order imposing sanctions on Venezuela to block operations with its gold reserves. The document, signed by Trump, states the intention of the US administration not to allow the country's authorities to "plunder Venezuela's wealth for their corrupt purposes" and "damage Venezuela's infrastructure and the country's ecology through mismanagement."

Russia, unlike the United States, does not have the habit of interfering in the internal affairs of other countries, as well as in their bilateral relations, but this refusal is directly related to our economy.

First, Russia is one of the main buyers of gold in the world, including the Venezuelan gold reserves. The Bank of Russia in the third quarter of this year acquired a record 92.2 tons of gold. As a result, the Russian gold reserves have now exceeded two thousand tons.

It should be noted that serious competition has developed on the world market for gold: it is bought up by such countries that differ in their economic models and political position as Turkey, Kazakhstan, India and Poland. Hungary has increased its gold reserves over the past quarter 10 times, from 3.1 to 31.5 tons.

Therefore, both US sanctions against Venezuelan gold and Britain's refusal to return it are a direct threat to Russian economic interests.

The USA and the leading European economies do not buy gold for an obvious reason - they already have a lot of it: the USA has 8133.5 tons, Germany has 3369.7 tons, Italy has 2451.8 tons, and France has 2436 tons. If Russia continues to buy gold at the same pace, it will very soon move both France and Italy.

By the way, the German gold reserve, by the way, starting from 1951, was partially stored in the USA, and first the FRG, and then the united Germany for many years unsuccessfully tried to return it. Last year, 300 tons, which had been lying in New York for many years, were returned, but there is a nuance: according to Valentin Katasonov, professor of the MGIMO Department of International Finance, Doctor of Economics, there are “many signs that physical gold at the time Germany demanded his return, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York was not in the safes … The ingots that came from overseas had different brands. There was a substitution of German gold for that gold, which apparently had to be hastily bought on the market."

This, by the way, may also be one of the reasons why London is in no hurry to give Venezuela its 14 tons - there is no free gold on the market, and Britain is not ready to give its own.

The second reason why Russia is affected by both anti-Venezuelan sanctions and Britain's unwillingness to give gold is the close economic cooperation of our country with Venezuela. For example, the Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA has received advances from Rosneft since 2014 as an advance payment for the supply of oil and oil products totaling $ 6.5 billion.

Our country has a vital stake in Venezuela remaining creditworthy, so any action against the Venezuelan economy threatens Russian interests.

Finally, the very formulation of the question "Why do you need your gold?" can seriously complicate the already very difficult international economic cooperation. It turns out that next time Britain may, for example, refuse to pay for Russian gas until Gazprom reports on what it intends to spend the money received. Or, conversely, refuse to supply Russian customers with prepaid whiskey until they provide information about who, where and with whom will drink this whiskey.

If in the place of Britain there were any non-European country, and in the place of Venezuela, on the contrary, a NATO member state, then, most likely, in two months the matter would have already moved from threats of the use of force to real intervention (of course, the official reasons would be completely different).

Venezuela, unlike Argentina, is unlikely to try Britain's strength. London is well aware of this, so they are in no hurry to return someone else's property.

But the abandonment of the basic principles of international trade that were formed in prehistoric times can ultimately hit Britain much harder than they could have expected, deciding not to give Venezuela 14 tons of its gold.

The largest banks in the USA and England behave like scammers

The Bank of England responded with a refusal to the demand of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to return to the country 15 tons of Venezuelan gold stored in the Bank of England. The Times reported this, citing its own sources. At the same time, the British authorities referred to the need for some kind of anti-money laundering procedure. They supposedly need to find out what exactly the money from the sale of gold bars worth about $ 550 million will be spent on.

"The Bank of England," the newspaper writes, "has fears that Mr. Maduro will sell gold and use the proceeds for his own benefit." Although it is clear that the head of state cannot do something similar with the country's gold reserve, even if he suddenly wanted to.

Venezuela's attempts to repatriate gold reserves were first reported by Reuters. According to his sources, the president argued his request with fears that, as a result, the country's gold would fall under international sanctions. Venezuela, whose economy is experiencing a severe crisis and hyperinflation, is already cut off from international markets, and its officials are under US and EU sanctions. Recently, the sanctions were extended by the Donald Trump administration, and then by the European Union.

The pressure of the United States and the West on Venezuela began in 1998, when the people's leader Hugo Chavez came to power in this oil-rich country. He declared an independent course and challenged the dictatorship of Washington. In 2013, after the death of Chavez, his policy as president was continued by Nicolas Maduro. However, under the blows of sanctions and the economic war unleashed against the obstinate republic in Venezuela, the crisis has worsened, the national debt has grown, and the situation of the population has worsened.

The country desperately needs funds to solve current problems, for this reason, the funds of the gold reserve are needed. However, London does not return the gold to Caracas, actually engaging in “golden blackmail”.

Others have been made fools too

The example of Western banks shamelessly pocketing gold from other countries is far from new. Shortly before the outbreak of World War II, the French government, fearing an invasion by German troops, exported a significant part of the country's gold reserves to the United States. But after the war, the Americans began to drag out the return process. Then the determined President Charles de Gaulle in 1965 collected all the paper dollars that he could - one and a half billion in cash - and sent them to the United States, offering American President Lyndon Johnson to exchange them at the official rate, $ 35 per ounce of gold. And most importantly, Paris insisted that the gold bars belonging to him would not be stored in the basements of the Federal Bank of New York, but would move to their homeland.

Several years ago, Germany and Holland tried to reclaim their gold reserves. The German gold reserve is the second in the world after the American one - 3400 tons, which corresponds to a market value of about 140 billion euros. All this gold was officially purchased on the stock exchanges in New York and London, where it remained - "in trust." It turned out that approximately 45% of Germany's gold reserves (about 1,500 tons of the precious metal) were stored in the US Federal Reserve System, another 450 tons - in the UK. When, two years ago, the Bundestag deputies counted how much gold is located directly in Germany, they were quite surprised, having counted only a little over 1000 tons.

As a result, a violent scandal erupted. "Can a country be considered sovereign if two-thirds of its gold reserves are stored abroad?" - asked the German MPs to Chancellor Angela Merkel. But they never managed to get the gold back.

Some explain exactly this the mysterious obedience of Berlin in relation to Washington, which is practicing its "golden blackmail".

And where is the gold of Russia?

In August 1914, the Russian Empire occupied a leading position in the world - its gold reserves amounted to 1 billion and 695 million rubles, which equaled 1,311 tons of the noble metal. But during the war, England had to guarantee the return of the war credits granted to England with gold. After the war, the size of Russia's gold reserves was estimated at 1101 million rubles. In August 1918, most of it, 505 tons of precious metal, was captured by the army of Admiral Kolchak. By the way, during the time that the admiral was in charge of it, the amount of precious metal, in addition to military expenditures, decreased by 182 tons, the disappearance of which is still a mystery.

In 1918, in connection with the signing of the Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty, the RSFSR sent 98 tons of gold to Germany. Then, at fabulous prices, 60 steam locomotives were purchased from England and Switzerland. They cost the country about 200 tons of gold (!). As the historian and writer Arsen Martirosyan writes, in the same years, Lenin's associates opened accounts in Swiss banks for fabulous sums at that time. For example, in the name of Dzerzhinsky, a deposit was opened in the amount of 85 million Swiss francs, in the name of Lenin - for 75 million, in the name of Zinoviev - for 80 million, in the name of Trotsky - for 90 million! All these contributions appeared during the period of Dzerzhinsky's foreign voyage, who was accompanied by a personal representative of Yakov Sverdlov by the name of Avanesov.

After Lenin's death and until his death, Stalin conducted Operation Cross to search for funds stolen from Russia by the “fiery Leninists”. He managed to get a lot back, but much was lost abroad.

By 1923, the country's gold reserve was only 400 tons and continued to melt, in 1928 it was already 150 tons. However, under Stalin, a rapid rise in gold mining began - up to 320 tons per year, thanks to which in 1941 the gold reserves of the USSR amounted to 2800 tons - the second place in the world.

Thanks to this, the Soviet Union was able to pay the United States for supplies under the Lend-Lease during World War II and had the means to recover from military losses. But as a result of the rule of Khrushchev, Brezhnev and Gorbachev, the country's gold reserves almost dried up. In 1991, it was only 290 tons. Only when Vladimir Putin became the president of Russia, the country began again the rapid accumulation of the noble metal. Over the past six years, the largest buyer of gold has been the Central Bank of the Russian Federation; in 2017, Russia increased its reserves by 224 tons and, overtaking China, ranked fifth in the world in terms of gold reserves.

However, some of our gold continues to remain overseas. America simply stole a part of it. At one time, the famous Soviet historian, an employee of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Professor Vladlen Sirotkin was involved in counting Russian money that was stuck in British and American banks during the First World War. According to his calculations, only from the end of 1915 to the end of 1916, the tsarist government sent several shipments of gold to the United States as collateral for the purchase of weapons and smokeless powder. But neither weapons nor gunpowder reached our country.

Several years ago, State Duma deputies decided to collect old debts - primarily from the United States. An International Expert Council on foreign Russian gold, real estate and tsarist debts was created, and later a commission was organized in the State Duma.

But the activities of these structures, as noted by Sirotkin in his memoirs, "artificially slowed down." In 2010, the Duma held hearings on the collection of foreign debts in favor of our country, but since then nothing has changed - no one intends to return the "tsar's gold" to us.

Crying money?

Moreover, information appeared in the media that the United States does not return "gold debts" to other countries for the simple reason that they have … they simply no longer have gold! The US Federal Reserve has long parted with German gold and used it in its banking operations, says Vasily Yakimkin, an associate professor at the Faculty of Finance and Banking at the Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration: “There have been no German bullions in the United States for a long time. Therefore, the German leadership was persuaded at the highest level to reverse the decision to return the gold to Germany. It is clear that the Americans sold it and resold it."

German Sterligov, one of the first Russian millionaires, thinks in the same way: “The gold reserves from the territory of the United States have long been exported, including the German one. Fort Knox is empty, the common fund was stolen - it was not thrown like that even in Russia, even in the 90s. The real masters of the world have seized almost the entire gold reserve of mankind. But Fort Knox also held the gold reserves of America's satellites."

Even some experts in the United States admit this. For example, Paul Craig Roberts, a former assistant for economic policy to the US Treasury Secretary in the Ronald Reagan administration, recently said: “No country that stores its gold in America will get it back. In the global precious metals market, it has long been suspected that banks, on behalf of the Federal Reserve Service, have used all of their reserves to drive down gold prices over the past few years.

And after the States used up their gold, they began to sell off what they had in storage.

In my opinion, most of the gold reserves were depleted sometime in 2011. By now, I think the American authorities no longer have a gold reserve."

How the Chinese were thrown

This incredible fact is confirmed by the story of the so-called Chinese tungsten gold. In October 2009, the US Treasury Department shipped 5,600 gold bars to China, 400 ounces each. And then for the first time in history, the Chinese instructed experts to check the ingots. And then a scandal broke out - the bars turned out to be fake!

As it turned out, they were made of tungsten, covered with the finest amalgam of real gold. Bullion batch registration numbers indicated that the counterfeits came from Federal Reserve banks during the time Bill Clinton was President. Experts have estimated the damage from the so-called Clinton scam at $ 600 billion.

But maybe, according to some experts, there was no scam? And the fact that gold was replaced with tungsten was simply a forced measure designed to somehow hide the bankruptcy of the United States? That this could be exactly so is indirectly confirmed by the recent visit of the head of the US Treasury Steve Mnuchin to Fort Knox. He allegedly checked the state's gold reserves in this vault, which is officially considered the largest in the world, in just one day. But according to reports, gold should be more than 8 thousand tons for an amount exceeding $ 332 billion. So it is not clear how he could have checked its presence in such a short time.

According to stock brokers, Washington generally trades precious metal only on paper or electronic records, the buyer receives a receipt that he has a certain amount of gold. Nobody gives ingots to their hands, and in general no one has seen them in their eyes for a long time.

But where, then, is all this gold? And isn't the current "golden blackmail" of the United States and England really a bluff?