The West lost at least another 1000 tonnes of large gold bars in 2015

Central banks are lying about their balance sheet assets?  Say it ain't so, Joe.  Bankers would never lie--especially regarding matters pertaining to gold.  /sarcasm

https://www.bullionstar.com/blogs/ronan-manly/west-lost-least-another-1000-tonnes-large-gold-bars-2015/

Overall, within the 2013 – 2015 period that is about 4200 – 4600 tonnes of gold being converted into kilogram and other smaller denomination high purity gold bars and sent to markets in China, India, Hong Kong and elsewhere in Asia. This is gold above and beyond mine supply and scrap supply. Where has all of this gold come from? Some of it is proven to be from gold-backed ETFs. Some is most probably also from central bank vaults, in which case the central banks do not have the gold that they claim to have. Which everybody know anyway, as much central bank gold has been lent out and is merely a fiction on the central bank balance sheets

Tweet from Bank of England on Gold Bars

Take a guess: how many gold bars are stored inside the vaults of the Bank of England? http://t.co/M4pQgs4EMJ
— Bank of England (@bankofengland) June 17, 2014

Answer:  Unencumbered?  Zero.

Peak Smuggling: Indian Has 12 Gold Bars Removed From His Stomach

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-04-20/peak-smuggling-indian-has-12-gold-bars-removed-his-stomach

Granny’s Gold Bars Are Key to Vietnam Push to Boost Dong

So the governments of India and Vietnam are trying to discourage their citizens from hoarding gold.  These citizens are only protecting themselves from corrupt central bank monetary policies.  It sounds familiar to the Fed and it's anti-gold campaign.

Meanwhile, black markets and smuggling have increased in India and Vietnam, because the smart money knows when official government policies try to dissuade its citizens from any asset, that asset will become more scarce and more valuable.  In other words, the governments' plan to ban gold imports will only backfire, as demand increases.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-14/granny-s-gold-bars-are-key-to-vietnam-push-to-boost-dong.html

U.S. gold bars and coins find new home overseas on Asian demand

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/11/usa-gold-export-idUSL1N0BB9CO20130211

Tiny gold bars latest rage for jittery investors

Anybody who still doubts whether gold is money should read this article.  Germans, traditionally prudent savers, know their history.  Unfortunately, most Americans do not.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/21/swiss-gold-idUSL5E8NL4N820121221

Is Gold in Fort Knox Real? Ron Paul Wants to Know

Even if every single gold bar the US Treasury claims it has in its vaults is real gold (as opposed to tungsten-filled bars), there are no guarantees the bars are unencumbered.  The gold could have been swapped, leased out, or outright sold to other parties, including other central banks, commercial banks, ETF's, and metals exchanges in London and New York.  The "conspiracy theory" is gaining traction. 

http://www.cnbc.com/id/43391588

Are the gold bars in Fort Knox really made of the precious metal? Or has the U.S. government secretly sold off the nation's stockpile and replaced it with metal bars that are only painted gold?

AP

Ron Paul wants to find out.

Giving legitimacy to an Internet conspiracy theory that the gold in Fort Knox is fake, the iconoclast Republican congressman from Texas has asked adminstration officials to audit the purity of the nation's 700,000 gold bars held in Fort Knox, according to an internal Treasury document obtained by CNBC. Paul, a presidential candidate who chairs the House's subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy, had previously called for the U.S. gold reserve to be counted and for a return to the gold standard. He now appears to be going a step further in his request that representatives from the U.S. Treasury Department and the U.S. Mint testify at a subcommittee hearing on June 23 about the authenticity of the nation's gold.

The Treasury document says it would cost about $15 million to conduct an audit. The process would take about 30 minutes to verify the gold content of each bar, or 350,000 man hours; to do that would would take 400 people working for six months, according to the document. The Mint is audited annually by the Treasury's Office of the Inspector General. An audit of the "Schedule of Custodial Deep Storage Gold and Silver Reserves" was published in September 2010.

A Google [GOOG  511.825    7.095  (+1.41%)   ] search of the phrase "Is the gold in Fort Knox fake" returns 623,000 results. Many of them reference a single, unverified report in 2009 that the Chinese received a fake shipment gold that, in fact, was tungsten.

One conspiracy theory says that no one has actually seen the gold since the 1930s. But in a letter to Paul in September, the Treasury Inspector General said he had "personally observed the gold reserves located in each of the deep storage compartments."

As a postscript to the story, CNBC asked for a tour of Fort Knox to film the gold, since our only footage of Fort Knox is from 1974. An official at the Mint told us that not he was not aware that any member of Congress had toured the facility since that year. Fort Knox is "a closed facility," the official said.

And so the conspiracy theory continues...