Silver Price Manipulated, says Regulator

By Dominique de Kevelioc de Bailleul

Just as the issue appeared to slip into the trash barrel, CFTC Commissioner Bart Chilton told readers of King World News that he still believes the silver price has been manipulated at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.

“I believe there has been repeated attempts to influence prices in the silver market,” Chilton told KWN. “And there’s been fraudulent efforts to persuade and deviously control the price.”

After years of pressure exerted onto the CFTC by the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee (GATA) and silver market specialist Theodore Butler of Investment Rarities Inc., as well as public disclosure of the scheme from former Goldman Sachs trader, Andrew Maguire, the CFTC initiated an investigation against two banks that the regulatory agency suspected of participating in the scheme to suppress the price of silver, JP Morgan and HSBC.  Sign-up for my 100% FREE Alerts!

Maguire’s public acknowledgment of the scheme has since prompted class action lawsuits against JP Morgan and HSBC.

“JP Morgan acts as an agent for the Federal Reserve; they act to halt the rise of gold and silver against the US dollar,” said Maguire. “JP Morgan is insulated from potential losses (on their short positions) by the Fed and/or the U.S. taxpayer.”

Coincidentally, or not, one day after Maguire was identified as the possible material witness to the allegations, he and his wife were injured in a hit-and-run accident.

“We got hit in the side at full acceleration and tried to corral the cars in a gas station, including the guy who hit us with a commercial vehicle,” Maguire was reported as saying following the incident.

The police caught the assailant, but then he was released. Police will not disclose further information about the man or the incident, according to Maguire.

Further supporting, GATA, Butler and Maguire came from a leaked State Department U.S. embassy cable –09BEIJING1134, released by WikiLeaks, which strongly suggests that the Chinese are also aware of the scheme to suppress the prices of gold and silver.

The cable reads:

According to China’s National Foreign Exchanges Administration, China’s gold reserves have recently increased. Currently, the majority of its gold reserves have been located in the United States and European countries. The U.S. and Europe have always suppressed the rising price of gold. They intend to weaken gold’s function as an international reserve currency. They don’t want to see other countries turning to gold reserves instead of the U.S. dollar or euro. Therefore, suppressing the price of gold is very beneficial for the U.S. in maintaining the U.S. dollar’s role as the international reserve currency. China’s increased gold reserves will thus act as a model and lead other countries toward reserving more gold. Large gold reserves are also beneficial in promoting the internationalization of the renminbi.

Chilton told KWN, “When people email me and say, ‘You watch the market (silver) between 9:15 and 9:45 tomorrow and it’s going to tank or it’s going to do this or it’s going to do that.’ I hold on to it and I watch the market and what they say happens, and I’m not saying this always happens, but it happens even 50% of the time, 60% of the time, there’s no way that doesn’t raise my antenna, like major, electric antenna goes up.”

He added, “So to me that was the reason why I thought we needed to look at this (silver), investigate it. . . I believe that there’s been violations of the law, The Commodity Exchange Act.”

The CFTC’s five-member panel reviewing the case has yet to take action against Federal Reserve primary dealers JP Morgan and HSBC.