Switzerland, blood gold capital of the world
gold, money laundering and white collar crime that is ongoing and we
hope to bring much more on the subject in the near future)
Over the millennia the
mining of gold has driven some of the world’s most brutal practices, as
armed militias enslave entire populations, forcing them to mine with
their bare hands or use rudimental tools at the blade of a machete or
point of a gun. There is nothing new about ‘blood gold’, it’s just that
you had no idea that you were likely supporting it when you bought that
special piece of jewelry for your partner or relative. From cheap high
street retail chains to the fashion houses of Paris and New York, blood
gold adorns us all.
It might surprise you to learn
that a minimum of two thirds and possibly as much as 90 percent of the
world’s gold goes, at some stage through Switzerland. It stands to
reason then that four of the six largest gold refineries in the world
have their headquarters there.
And what better country to carry out such a task than one of the most
trusted nations on earth. According to Transparency International’s
latest ‘Corruption Perception Index‘, Switzerland ranks number seven in the world as least corrupt.
This week, truepublica published a report on what an absurdity this report really is when it came to Britain ranking as number 10
in global terms. Likewise, Switzerland is mired in international terror
financing and money laundering from the Mafia to militia groups,
from drugs, arms and trafficking to the destabilisation of entire
nations.
Here we highlight just a few of the high crimes Switzerland is as an
accomplice to the deplorable global corruption that makes up one third
of Swiss GDP and it makes for sobering reading. And these are far from
few.
For instance, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo five million people have died in conflicts fuelled largely by the gold trade.
According to the International Peace Information Service (IPIS), nearly
500 out of the 800 mines it surveyed in 2013 in the DRC are run by
armed groups or the corrupt Congolese army.
Six months ago, activists accused
authorities in Switzerland of encouraging impunity, after prosecutors
shut a case against a Swiss company, one of the largest gold refineries
in the world, suspected of laundering over 3 tonnes of gold pillaged by
armed groups in the DRC.
