Ukraine Central Bank Conned Into Swapping Its Gold For Lead Bricks -- Zero Hedge

Just when one thought the story of Ukraine and its (now non-existant) gold could not get any more surreal, it did.

As a reminder, it was about a month ago when we learned courtesy of an interview on Ukraine TV with the country's central bank head Valeriya Gontareva, that Ukraine's gold was virtually all gone, when she made the stunning admission that "in the vaults of the central bank there is almost no gold left. There is a small amount of gold bullion left, but it's just 1% of reserves."

That in itself would have been sufficient to explain why just a few short days later, the Netherlands shocked the world when it announced it had secretly repatriated 122 tonnes of gold from the NY Fed, and had the story of Ukraine's missing gold ended there (or even with the criminal probe launched by Ukraine whether the central bank head had abused her power and misused her office when she "intentionally committed an extremely unfavorable transaction for the gold and forex reserves of Ukraine"), it still would have been one of the most bizarre, surreal stories of 2014.

Luckily, the story just got far better, and far, far more bizarre and surreal.

As Bloomberg reports, Ukraine opened a criminal probe after several gold bars at the central bank’s storage in the southern city of Odessa turned to be painted lead.

Read more ....

Update: Ukraine Admits Its Gold Is Gone: "There Is Almost No Gold Left In The Central Bank Vault" -- Zero Hedge

My Comment: This story has been ignored in both the main stream media and in much of the Ukraine press .... but kudos to Zero Hedge .... his coverage of what has happened to Ukraine's gold reserves has been priceless, and a "heads-up" on how corrupt doing business in Ukraine really is.