A veil of secrecy surrounds the shipping of 13 metric tons of South African gold to Iran. Iranian media last week announced the country had taken delivery of gold worth more than R6-billion that the South African government had been storing for more than two years. This was despite UN-backed sanctions on trade with Iran.

Neither the Treasury nor the Reserve Bank would reveal the identity of the institution involved in the purchase. The 13 tons of gold were bought for Iran prior to the US State Department discussing the easing of asset sanctions against Iran in November 2013. Sanctions on Iranian gold assets were eased slightly in January 2014. In a statement released last week, the governor of the Central Bank of Iran, Valiollah Seif, confirmed that Iran had secured the release of that country’s gold assets “blocked in South Africa under US-led sanctions”.

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