Wednesday October 31 11:54 PM ET

Tons of Gold, Silver Buried Below WTC Recovered

By Alden Bentley

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Some $375 million in gold and silver buried beneath the World Trade Center since the Sept. 11 attacks that destroyed the financial district landmark has been found and is being relocated, the custodian for the metals said on Wednesday.

``We are relocating contents of a vault and the reason that we're moving the contents now is because authorities need to demolish the building,'' said Pam Agnew, spokeswoman for Canada's Bank of Nova Scotia, the parent of bullion dealer and depository ScotiaMocatta.

The bank declined to elaborate for security reasons, but said it was working closely with authorities to ensure a ``safe and secure relocation effort'' for the underground hoard, estimated to be worth at least $375 million.

The disaster prevented access to 12 tons of gold and almost 30 million ounces of silver that were stored in the facility on behalf of the COMEX metals trading division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. The metal was used to guaranty delivery against futures contracts traded at the COMEX.

It is believed that other valuables were kept in the vaults, but there was no information on whether additional precious metals, jewels or securities might have been recovered or lost in the disaster.

The Daily News reported Wednesday that emergency crews in lower Manhattan found the gold on Tuesday. Workers loaded at least two Brink's armored trucks with metal that had been out of reach since the September 11 hijacked plane attacks which brought down the Twin Towers, the paper said.

At an afternoon news conference on Wednesday, New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani confirmed that Brink's Inc. armored cars were at the location and that ``most'' of the estimated $200 million in gold had been found.

Brink's did not return calls for comment. The Daily News said that a small army of heavily armed federal agent stood guard as city policemen and firefighters packed the trucks.

-- Anonymous, November 01, 2001

Answers

Good find, Old Git, I hadn't seen that one. I had read that a huge amount of gold and silver was buried under the rubble. One estimate of the silver there stated it was 25% of all the world's silver reserves. Anyway, you will note how much importance was placed on getting that metal back into custody. The physical metal is a serious part of the gold and silver manipulation schemes going on right now. Thus it would be vital, and a priority, to get it back in their hands. This was one of those silent special efforts I think. No mention of bodies recovered either? Well, to the precious metal folks those bodies are of little importance compared to that metals hoard.

-- Anonymous, November 01, 2001

It would have been awful to find bodies in the vault.

Was the vault on the ground floor, or in a basement level? I suspect a basement level.

Seems silly to expect Brinks to comment on something like this. Security companies tend to be closed lipped about business, which is one of the things that clients look for in such a company.

Was there any problem with trading due to the inaccessibility of the deposits? I don't recall hearing about any. After all, it could still be traded on paper, right?

-- Anonymous, November 01, 2001

Barefoot, the silver and gold was deep underground from what I had read about it. A very secure vault system being managed by ScotiaMocatta as noted above. The silver hoard was especially vital to the metals manipulators. When someone wants to take delivery of a large silver order, versus just trading paper values on it, then they must have that physical metal to transfer to the buyer. Otherwise the price of silver starts to skyrocket due to reduced actual inventory available. Having it buried is no good for the physical trade market.

This is likely why there was a priority effort mounted to dig down to that vault and get that physical metal. Unless you have been following the gold and silver markets you may not realize how close to a price explosion each of those metals is. And if it were to explode to the upside it would take down a whole bunch of banks who have been selling it short and have massive derivative positions that can not be covered unless they can actually deliver the metals to those who want to take actual delivery. This was a *very* dicey situation with all that actual gold and silver buried the way it was. Seems like they have a temporary breather going for them again, for a little while longer at least. Personally I think their metals games will crash on them anyway within a few more months and the prices will burst upward, requiring massive bailouts by the Fed.

-- Anonymous, November 01, 2001

oh, thanks Gordon, for trying to cheer me up. Something else to look forward to for this year.

house flood, house fire, anthrax, end of the world, dog bite, precious metals crashing the market, nukes, smallpox, gee, have a I left anything out?

actually, the house flood was last year, but why split hairs? we're dealing with it again now.

-- Anonymous, November 01, 2001