U.S. Mint Buys Drug Cartel Gold and Sells It as 'American'

duxup•about 4 hours ago

Gift link:

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/26/world/americas/us-mint-go...

johnea•18 minutes ago

"The founding principles of our country": He who has the gold makes the rules...

msuniverse2026•about 4 hours ago

Wish I understood what was going on with the gold price. Shit goes gangbusters when nothing is happening, and when straits are closed and countries invaded it goes down.

kingstnap•about 3 hours ago

Gold is largely a speculative asset just like any other, despite what you might believe given the culture we have that reveres gold as "real" value.

There is much more gold mined then used in jewelry or electronics. And the jewelry often gets recycled since people don't tend to carelessly throw out their gold jewelry.

The super majority of demand is just making bars to sell to banks and individuals to keep in vaults. This naturally means what controls its price is largey the amount of stockpiling going on.

Gold going gangbusters was mostly a sell off of US treasuries over the tarrif chaos last year which ended up chasing gold. It couldn't for example chase housing in China given the massive slump in their housing markets for years.

The straight being closed doesn't really signal to central banks or individuals that they need to sell more goverment bonds and swap into gold. If anything they will probably be tempted to sell to cover goods inflation from oil shocks.

readthenotes1•about 2 hours ago

Türkiye sold, literally, tons of it at the start of the war and that's one of the reasons the price went down.

Before the war central banks were buying it up like crazy. Iirc, it has surpassed US treasuries as assets for the first time quite a while.

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/turkish-gold-reser...

tastyfreeze•about 3 hours ago

Gold price has more to do with dollar devaluation than anything. When the money printer goes brrr the price of gold will go up in delayed response.

zulux•about 3 hours ago

"Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent"

consumer451•about 3 hours ago

"It's a big club, and you ain't in it."

defrost•about 3 hours ago

This might shed some light:

Gold, a 'safe haven' in uncertain times: Why is it crashing amid a war?

31 days ago | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47526511

AngryData•about 4 hours ago

Of course it does. Gold has been used for currency since forever in large part because it is easy to hide its source. A simple melt in a pot will erase every bit of history and political baggage from a piece of gold. Any large institutions dealing with gold are knowingly trading in the global black market with large criminal organizations and corrupt governments.

m463•about 3 hours ago

kind of funny how bitcoin, which doesn't even exist in the physical world, has more traceability.

lvl155•about 3 hours ago

Gold has been a vehicle for cartels for a very long time. It’s shifted to crypto in recent years but gold is still the cleanest (and most economical) way to clean money.

pwg•about 3 hours ago

And entire article to say: "gold is fungible".

Cider9986•about 3 hours ago

Which is more fungible, gold or Monero?

U.S. Mint Buys Drug Cartel Gold and Sells It as 'American'

⚡ Community Insights

Discussion (14 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews