Photo: DPAThe Bundesbank, Germany's central bank, said Wednesday it had returned to German soil all of its gold kept in Paris and some reserves from the US, three years ahead of schedule. The secret shipments were finished far ahead of the 2020 deadline at a cost of some €7.7 million, bringing the share of German gold stored at home to 50 percent. But at the height of the eurozone crisis in 2012, eurosceptic voices began pressing for an audit of the precious metal kept abroad, in case it might have been tampered with, lent out or sold off. Germany holds the world's second-largest gold reserves after the United States, at 3,378 tonnes or 270,000 ingots of around 12 kilogrammes each -- for a market value of around 120 billion euros. Some 1,710 tonnes are now kept in Frankfurt, with 1,236 remaining in New York and 432 in London.

Source: The Local August 23, 2017 13:35 UTC