Ukraine had sadly been on a road leading to nowhere for the last few years, and they really seem to have switched to high gear over the last year. A few months ago, there were a lot of "stories" about Ukrainian gold being loaded into unmarked trucks and flown out of the country in the middle of the night. The most recent head-scratcher comes from their Central Bank branch in the southern port city of Odessa. It seems that we have some more gold swaps happening and for once we are referring to a literal swap and not a financial instrument. RT reports that 11 kilograms of the Ukrainian Central Bank's gold is missing or more accurately, it has been swapped with 11 kilograms of painted lead.
"Cunning fraudsters have conned the Ukraine Central Bank branch in Odessa into buying $300,000 worth of gold which turned out to be lead daubed with gold paint. “A criminal case has been opened and we are now carrying out an investigation to identify those involved in the crime,” a spokesman for the Odessa police force is quoted by Vesti. The news was first reported by Odessa’s State Ministry of Internal Affairs. A preliminary investigation suggests the gang had someone working for them inside the bank that forged the necessary paperwork to allow the sale of the fake gold bullion. It’s also been discovered that bank staff were not regularly checked when entering or exiting the premises."
An inside job you say? No shit Sherlock. How does 11 kilograms of gold walks out of a Central Bank facility? If true, what a mess. Granted this is nowhere near the dysfunction we saw in Iraq over the summer when ISIS captured the Iraqi Central Bank's Mosul facility and helped themselves to a cool $429 million. But at last check, there is no hot war being fought in Odessa with waves of marauders overrunning the city.