Some time ago, during the "gold repatriation" craze of a few years ago, I noted that Austria was one of those countries seeking to repatriate its gold from major western central banks, in this case, the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street, a.k.a. the Bank of England.
You might recall that similar stories began to percolate when then-president of Venezuela Hugo Chavez demanded the repatriation of Venezuela's gold, and the Bank of England (and other western central banks) refused on the grounds that they disagreed with Mr. Chavez's regime. Germany quickly followed, attempting to repatriate large quantities of its gold reserves from the New York Fed, the French central bank, and - yes - the Bank of England. While some of that gold was supposedly delivered, audit and assay issues have plagued the so-called repatriation and not all Germans following the story are convinced that the deliveries to the Bundesbank are entirely "kosher". After Germany, people in the Netherlands and in Austria also began lobbying for repatriation of those nations' reserves. During this period, China and Russia were buying gold like crazy, and stories began to emerge of fraudulent deliveries of gold in China and - for those who remember - Canada, where the deliveries were also tied to the approbation of the Royal Canadian Mint. In many cases of these fraudulent deliveries, the gold was simply wrapping a center of tungsten. Additionally, in China, loans of billions of dollars were supposedly collateralized with gold, which - again - turned out to be fraudulent.
On and on we could go.