Excuse me sir, but we seem to have misplaced half a tonne of gold, and were wondering if perhaps you had noticed such an item in your travels. If not, would you be so kind as to direct me to the Lost & Found?
canada.com
OTTAWA — Police are ruling out theft for $15.3 million in gold missing from the Royal Canadian Mint, though the mint isn't yet ready to say what happened to the fortune or whether it has been recovered.
Junior Transport Minister Rob Merrifield, responsible for the Crown corporation, announced in the House of Commons Tuesday that an RCMP investigation has concluded, "there was no theft from the mint. An external review has gone on that provides an explanation of the unaccounted for gold."
The mint is understandably relieved.
"There's no theft," said Christine Aquino, mint spokeswoman. "It validates what the mint already knew, that we have extremely rigorous measures in place which makes us one of the most secure facilities in Canada."
What happened to the more than half a metric ton of gold remains a state secret, at least for now.
"We're not going to comment at this time," said Aquino.
The federal government ordered the mint to call in police in June after a series of Ottawa Citizen reports revealed mint officials had been quietly searching for the gold since October 2008, including initiating an independent audit by Deloitte.
The audit found no accounting, bookkeeping or other internal errors to account for 17,514 troy ounces of gold and small amounts of silver and platinum missing from the mint's Sussex Drive inventory. That's the equivalent of almost 44 bars weighing 400-ounces each.
Gold closed Tuesday at $1,236 an ounce, making the gold in question worth about $21.7 million. The mint values it at $15.3 million based on a 2008 selling price.
The mint learned of the RCMP's conclusion in a Nov. 17 letter.
"A thorough investigation was conducted of all investigative leads which would have conceivably supported criminal wrongdoing," wrote Supt. Stan Burke, of Ottawa's A Division. "Our inquiries and investigation to date do not support further effort in the continuance of a criminal investigation into this matter."
The Deloitte audit report, meanwhile, recommended three additional avenues to investigate: A security review; a technical review of the processes, formulae and benchmarks used in its gold refinery, where most of the gold went missing; and, an accounting review of periods before October 2008.
External reviews of physical security, including computer systems, as recommended by Deloitte, were consistent with the Mountie's finding that a theft is not responsible, the mint said in a brief release Tuesday.
Aquino said findings of the reviews of technical processes and accounting prior to October 2008 are to be released in mid-December when federal Auditor General Sheila Fraser is expected sign off on the corporation's year-end 2008 financial statements. The financials had been delayed pending the results of the latest reviews.
That the year-end financials are finally ready for Fraser's approval suggests the mint has reconciled the $15.3 million on its books. However, if the gold is still somehow unaccounted for, the mint has previously said it would file an insurance claim and record the missing metal as a loss.
The federal government, which has called the episode "inexcusable," has ordered the mint to withhold executive bonuses until the matter is resolved.
As a result of the episode, the government has told the mint to reconcile its rolling precious metals inventory every quarter. Previously, the complex and time-consuming process was done in April and October. Some of the gold belongs to the mint, while some belongs to customers who have it processed or stored at the mint.
Account records are checked against physical stock. The April 2008 count was fine. But the second count in October 2008 could not reconcile tabulations of the mint's own gold with the physical stockpile. The difference represented about 0.32 per cent of the total gold throughput for 2008. Customers' gold and other precious metals were not affected.
When the discrepancy became public, the mint said a huge world demand for gold last year, and especially the mint's Gold Maple Leaf coin series, pushed production up by 352 per cent. It suggested that might have something to do with the mystery.
Within the gold refinery, thousands of ounces are "in process" at any one time, amounting to several million ounces annually. Excruciating efforts are made to retrieve every speck. Everything from the ductwork and crucibles used to handle molten gold, to rags and tissues that come in contact with the metal are routinely scoured and processed for trace amounts.
Mint profits also soared last year, to a record (and unaudited) $44.2 million, well above the corporate target for 2008 of $36.3 million. |
