“Suppression of precious metals won’t last forever. Ultimately the law of supply and demand will prevail as purchases of physical gold—and possibly silver—overwhelm trading of imaginary metal.”
When I made that prediction six years, I had no idea exactly when the price suppression scheme would unravel, or how high and fast gold and silver prices would rise as confidence in fiat currencies declined, and demand for financial safe havens and sound money rose.
At the time, I viewed the commodity exchanges and markets as rigged casinos run by bullion and central banks that traded dubious futures and forward contracts laden with enormous volumes of mythical metal to fraudulently subdue gold and silver prices.
However, I knew the derivatives-trading deception eventually would end like all accounting frauds, con games and investment scams, and, God willing, in Enron-style or Bernie Madoff fashion.
Those were my thoughts and wishes when I published “Rigged: Exposing the Largest Financial Fraud in History” in January 2020. In the book, which documents gold price suppression and silver market manipulation, I predicted the decades-long price-rigging ruse inevitably would fail. At the time, gold was trading around $1,500 an ounce and spot silver was $18.
Price Manipulators Lost the Battle
Precious metals have appreciated significantly since then, with gold and silver increasing nearly three-fold or more in depreciating U.S. dollars. So far this year, the gold price is up 65 percent and silver has risen 120 percent.
Record-smashing gold and silver valuations indicate efforts to restrict their rise have failed miserably. After decades of coordinated scheming, derivatives dealing, metals leasing and swapping, market manipulators lost the battle to contain bullion prices and now Wall Street banks—among the principal culprits—project higher prices in the coming year.
While naked short sellers continue to ply their trades and stage a feeble, managed retreat, their desperate wagers and periodic price smashes have diminishing effect as demand for gold and silver intensifies, eclipsing available supply and revealing spurious promises to deliver physical metal.
For gold-buying central banks, industrial users of silver and retail bullion investors gobbling up the finite stocks of above-ground precious metals, the jig is up, even if market riggers persist in their attempts to throttle prices.
Rising Prospect for $10,000 Gold
Six years ago, only conspiracy nuts, financial market skeptics and bold price-forecasting prophets believed precious metals were manipulated and gold could reach $10,000 an ounce. Among them were the late Nick Barisheff, BMG Group founder and author of the 2012 book “$10,000 Gold,” and financial analyst and best-selling author James Rickards, who in 2020 predicted a $15,000 gold price within five years. Rickards since has lifted his gold forecast to $27,000 an ounce.
Now even the CEO of chief market manipulator and five-time felon JPMorgan, believes the gold price could move much higher. “It could easily go to $5,000 or $10,000 in environments like this,” said Jamie Dimon, citing elevated asset prices during a Fortune interview in October.
Dimon’s remark was both surprising and unprecedented given his bank’s repeated—and illegal—market-rigging record. However, if JPMorgan has exited its silver short position and amassed 750 million ounces of the metal, as reported this week by The Economic Times, it’s understandable why Dimon could envision and support substantial upside in both precious metals since they tend to move in tandem.
The late silver market analyst Ted Butler claimed JPMorgan had amassed 900 million ounces of silver while suppressing the metal’s price. “They held down the price while they scooped up this huge quantity of silver,” he said during a 2020 interview.
By the way, on Sept. 29, 2020 JPMorgan reached a $920 million out-of-court settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice after the nation’s largest bank admitted its traders manipulated precious metals and U.S. Treasury markets between 2008 and 2016. Two of the bank’s precious metals traders were convicted in 2022 of fraudulent activities and sentenced to prison.
Since 2014, the world’s leading bullion banks and trading companies collectively have paid more than $1.2 billion in fines and legal settlements for manipulating precious metal markets. Most of the offenders continue to trade the metals.
GATA’s Revelations Weren’t In Vain
Attitudes and outlooks have changed dramatically since the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee (GATA) first discovered and disclosed surreptitious price-rigging of precious metals in 1999. Over the last 25 years, GATA has uncovered and compiled reams of documentary evidence of market manipulation and price suppression by the bullion and central banks, Bank for International Settlements and International Monetary Fund.
Asked what GATA will do if the derivatives dam ever breaks and washes away the market riggers, Chris Powell, the organization’s co-founder and secretary/treasurer, sarcastically suggested UFOs, the Loch Ness Monster, the Bermuda Triangle, Bigfoot and Jimmy Hoffa among possible investigative pursuits.
“If we take up one of those, we’ll surely get more mainstream news coverage than we have gotten with gold,” Powell sardonically responded.
Despite Powell’s dry humor and humility, GATA’s sleuthing and revelations haven’t been in vain or gone unnoticed in the precious metals sector. Through the years, an untold number of investors, stackers, traders and nations around the world have awakened to the truth of price suppression and market manipulation. By challenging the scheme and accumulating gold and silver, they drove prices higher.
True Price Discovery Accelerates
With strong demand for silver and gold now exposing the treacherous fraud of trading leveraged derivatives and imaginary metal, efforts to control bullion prices are waning amid production limitations, growing supply deficits and silver tightness at the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA).
The appetite for physical metal rises around the globe as more gold and silver buyers grow wise to previously clandestine market machinations, debunking the debunkers, discrediting the paper pushers, and disregarding the censorship of the disinterested and docile mass media. The conspiracy theory shroud has been lifted and the grifters’ game is coming to a close as true price discovery accelerates.
Overleveraged banks and traders can—and likely will—continue to slam prices on occasion to reduce their losses, and increase volatility in attempts to discourage precious metal purchases in the short term, but they can’t halt the inflationary fiat spiral, change market fundamentals, or rapidly increase the supply of deliverable gold and silver. That’s why the price-rigging jig is up.
© 2025 Stuart Englert. All rights reserved.
Englert is the author of “Rigged: Exposing the Largest Financial Fraud in History.”
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