Evidence is growing that the gold swaps that long have been undertaken through the Bank for International Settlements have been meant to accomplish the double-counting of gold attributed to the major gold exchange-traded funds so the ETF gold could be used to support longstanding Western central bank and government gold price-suppression efforts.
As GATA has reported for several years, it is believed that the BIS swaps use gold provided by a bullion bank on behalf of the largest gold ETF, whose stock symbol is GLD, the SPDR Gold Trust. This gold is swapped via the BIS and the gold is deposited in a gold sight account at the Federal Reserve. The entire transaction is believed to be circular, as the original gold swapped by the bullion bank originated from the Federal Reserve. This would result in the same gold being counted as residing with GLD and the Fed at the same time.
The SPDR Gold Mini Shares Trust – GLDM -- which is a sister gold ETF of GLD, is probably also involved now, as its constitution and operational methodology are broadly similar to GLD's.
Also, the iShares COMEX Gold Trust -- IAU -- operates with a similar process based on blocs of 50,000 shares for authorized participants to buy and sell gold for the trust. IAU also uses JP Morgan as a custodian and an authorized participant. Hence it too could now hold double counted gold. As of March, 31, 2009, IAU held only 79 tonnes of gold and was too small to be used.
The 2009-2010 background to the BIS' first reported use of gold swaps
Gold swaps of 346 tonnes were first disclosed by the BIS in its 2010 annual report for the year ending March 31, 2010. This was the only time that the BIS has commented on the swaps, and news coverage at the time included an article in the Financial Times with an interview with the then-general manager of the BIS, Jamie Caruna. The official story was that the swaps were a mechanism to allow commercial banks to obtain U.S. dollars from the BIS -- effectively equivalent to dollar loans secured by gold held by the commercial banks.
The FT's 2010 report on the gold swaps is here:
https://www.ft.com/content/3e659ed0-9b39-11df-baaf-00144feab49a
Two other news reports – one by Reuters, the other by Business Insider -- were published around the same time:
https://www.gata.org/sites/default/files/Reuters-BIS-Gold-Swaps-07-16-2010_0.pdf
https://www.businessinsider.com/european-banks-lent-customers-gold-to-the-bis-2010-7
In March 2009 GLD was by far the largest gold ETF in the world, holding more than 90% of all ETF-held gold reserves at the end of the first quarter of 2009.
What probably really prompted the Federal Reserve to undertake gold swaps via the BIS was the strong demand for gold in the first quarter of 2009 and the desire to conceal the Fed's intervention. After the 2007-08 financial crash, gold attracted more interest from investors and prices rose from $879 in December 2008 to a peak of $997 in February 2009. Subsequently the gold price fell back to $923 at the end of March 2009.
During this period, Q1 2009, the amount of gold held by GLD increased by 347 tonnes, from 780 tonnes to 1,127 tonnes at March 31, 2009. This was an increase of 44% in the gold held by GLD while the gold price itself increased only 5% after the sharp decline from the peak closing price of $997.
As those who follow GATA may recognize, these changes indicate the possibility that the gold price was being suppressed during this time, possibly by central bank gold leasing designed to prevent shortages.
Indeed, there is a striking similarity between the gold swaps reported by the BIS at March 31, 2010 -- 346 tonnes -- and the increase in the gold held by GLD in the first quarter of 2009, 347 tonnes.
So it is plausible that the deployment of gold swaps by the BIS in late 2009 reflected a decision by the Federal Reserve to ensure greater legal protection for the gold the Fed had already leased to GLD. The large size of GLD and the ability of commercial bullion banks to add to or remove gold from GLD's vaults at this time made the ETF the obvious vehicle to use for the swaps.
BIS swap estimates calculated monthly by GATA provide the following time line for the introduction of the BIS gold swaps in late 2009:
End December 2009: 37 tonnes
End January 2010: 93 tonnes
End February 2010: 296 tonnes
End March 2010: 346 tonnes
The gold held by GLD at March 31, 2010 -- 1,130 tonnes -- was only slightly higher than the tonnage held a year earlier, as the increase in gold demand moderated. So conjecture that the swaps were used to replace leased gold from Q1 2009 is plausible.
The last decade
Turning to more recent times, GLDM started trading in 2018 and uses the same trading methodology as GLD. Gold purchases and sales for GLDM can be executed only by authorized bullion banks (including JP Morgan) in lots representing 100,000 shares.
In 2023 JP Morgan became the custodian of GLDM's gold, and since December 2022 JP Morgan has also been a joint custodian of GLD's gold, with more than 90% of GLD's gold now held in JP Morgan vaults. JP Morgan is also authorized to buy and sell gold for both ETFs. Hence GLDM is probably being used for surreptitious intervention in the gold market just as GLD is.
As already mentioned, IAU uses JP Morgan as a custodian and authorized participant so conceivably also could be used to intervene.
GLD, with 1,059 tonnes of gold, IAU with 463 tonnes, and GLDM with 233 tonnes, are the three largest U.S.-domiciled gold ETFs, and their total current gold holding of 1,755 tonnes represents more than 80% of the total North American ETF gold reported by the World Gold Council.
It seems unlikely that other U.S.-domiciled gold ETFs would be used to house double-counted gold.
BIS swaps volumes peaked at 594 tonnes in November 2017 and reached another peak in February 2021 of 552 tonnes. All the evidence provided by the monthly BIS statements of account indicate that the gold swaps have been regularly used every month since 2010.
GATA suspects that the leasing of gold or some other mechanism also has been used to introduce central bank gold into gold ETFs because reducing the swaps by procuring other sources of so much physical gold -- nearly 600 tonnes -- seems unlikely.
In 2025 the BIS' gold swaps had fallen to a historically low level, but they began increasing substantially again in January 2026, apparently as demand for physical gold grew.
The reported gold holdings of GLD and GLDM at month-ends since December 31, 2025 are in the following tables, together with GATA's estimated levels of BIS gold swaps. The changes in swaps totals offer some support for believing that at least part of the gold in the two ETFs were sourced from central banks, most likely the Federal Reserve.
...........................BIS swaps …. GLD gold ….... GLDM gold
...........................Tonnage ….... tonnage …...... tonnage
December 2025 ....... 56 ....... 872 ................ 175
January 2026 ............ 106 ....... 1,065 ............ 180
February 2026 .......... 104 ....... 1,101..............184
March 2026 ...............184 .......1,047.............. 191
April 2026 .................134 ........1,032 ............ 196
May 2026 ................ 146 ....... 1,028 ............ 199
June 2026 ................ 144 ....... 1,027............. 203
July 2026 ..................131.........1,019 ............. 206
August 2026 ............141....... 1,054 .............. 208
September 2026 .......NA .......1,056 .............. 211
Conclusion
The gold involved in the BIS swaps is believed to be held by a commercial bullion bank -- probably as a custodian or an authorized dealer of a gold exchange-traded fund -- and is swapped for dollars via the BIS, probably on behalf of the U.S. Federal Reserve. It seems likely that the swaps are used if conditions in the physical gold market are likely to cause a sharp increase in the gold price when the gold exchange-traded funds GLD, GLDM. or IAU are adding to their stocks of gold.
So central bank gold is provided as a source of gold to prevent the stronger market demand from pushing up gold prices. At times of extreme stress this central bank gold would prevent the London market from running out of gold.
If this interpretation is correct, investors who purchase shares in a traditional gold exchange-traded fund like GLD in the hope of gold price appreciation are actually helping to sabotage free-market pricing in gold, buying a claim on metal they cannot ever actually possess, metal that, on any particular day, may be, to put it politely, vastly oversubscribed in the service of price suppression.
The steady decline in BIS gold swaps in recent years may correlate with bullion bank JPMorgan having become co-custodian of the gold held by GLD, gold that may have become another source of metal for surreptitious U.S. government intervention in the gold market. As of this date JP Morgan is the custodian of more than 90% of GLD's gold.
Since ordinary shareholders of GLD cannot redeem their shares for actual metal -- a right restricted to the bullion bank "authorized participants" associated with the fund -- it may be relatively easy for JPMorgan and other bullion banks to juggle claims to GLD gold that lead to double counting, and the ETF may not own all the metal it thinks it owns, thus perpetuating the gross "rehypothecation" of gold in the market.
Indeed, that so much of the metal of the major U.S. gold ETFs is vaulted with JP Morgan or is otherwise heavily under that bank's influence would make it much easier for the U.S. government to nationalize or confiscate that metal outright, perhaps with mandatory cash settlement of the metal at gold's closing price just prior to a major upward official revaluation of gold.
After all, JPMorgan long has been vaulting and trading gold surreptitiously for many central banks and thus has been at the center of gold and currency market manipulation --
-- and the BIS long has refused to answer questions about its activity in the gold market:
So market intervention and manipulation are always the most likely explanation for the BIS' unaccountability in public, especially since the bank has advertised to potential central bank members that its services include secret interventions in the gold and currency markets:
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