Snapshot: Ukraine

The urban slang term “to be corzined” can be defined roughly as follows:

When something of value is stolen, and everyone who was in charge of safeguarding said item claims ignorance of just about anything.

This originates from the MF Global scandal, and their CEO Jon Corzine, formerly a US Senator and CEO of Goldman Sachs who, when a $1.6 billion hole appeared where his clients money should have been, testified that he did not know where the money was or where it went. Several other financial officers of the firm also claimed total ignorance of everything and claim the money was “vaporised”, which was apparently sufficient to preclude them from criminal charges.

Alongside the strange story of Ukraine selling gold to Russia (Ukraine needs the cash, Russia need a rouble hedge, and we imagine the negotiation was frosty) there was a surreal twist when it was discovered that several of the gold bars at the central bank’s storage in the southern city of Odessa turned to be painted lead.  The latest gold fraud apparently involved a central bank employee (acting as part of a gang) selling lead bars covered with golden paint to the storage unit, registering them as gold.

First Deputy Central Bank Governor Oleksandr Pysaruk, announced that they “took a principal decision that we will not buy gold any more from the population. We are making conclusions internally, including changing our procedures” .