Audit of Fed’s gold finds it’s safe, more pure than expected?

NEW YORK — Turns out the Federal Reserve‘s gold is secure and a bit more pure than previously thought — or so the government says.

Auditors spent weeks last year in a vault five stories beneath Manhattan counting, weighing and drilling small holes into gold bars owned by the U.S. Treasury.

It was the first time the Treasury’s inspector general had audited the department’s gold held by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which has captured the imagination of Hollywood as well as government skeptics.

The audit’s results are in: The New York Fed’s operations and controls are up to snuff, and the U.S. gold on deposit is a bit finer than Treasury records had indicated.

Still, the audit probably will not lay to rest questions over whether the New York Fed has secretly lent the gold or otherwise encumbered it in a swap transaction with another government or bank.

“There’s no way to prove there’s not a secret agreement,” said Ted Truman, a former assistant Treasury secretary and top Fed official.

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