Another Iranian Gold Story

We keep running into stories about physical gold in Iran. The sanctions issued against Iran by the western world hasn’t hurt the country in the way the governments thought it would. The “sanction” heard-round-the-world was the use of the SWIFT system against the Iranian people. Russia, China, India and Turkey are took note and all made massive changes to their internal and international policies. The policy changes were not just monetary but military changes as well. Theses changes are beginning to impact the global trade in ways no one thought possible. Another couple of years and these changes are going to be undeniable and their impact will be felt by everyone.

We have reported more on physical gold in Iran over the past 3-4 months than we have in the last 3-4 years. Not because we’re lazy or not looking for the information, it just didn’t exist. Now on top of everything else going involving gold in Iran, like Iranians using gold to pay rent or stacking physical gold for retirement we find smuggling of gold ore, not refined gold, but gold that needs to be separated from other materials and then refined! This raises a lot of questions. Why is gold ore being smuggled since it is incredibly bulky, unrefined and just doesn’t make a lot of sense carry around 10 tons of rock that produces approximately 550-600 ounces (35-40 pounds) of gold? Why is gold being smuggled out of Iran when the demand is so high for gold inside Iran?