50s: Starting with a storage ring

Chapter 346 The Federal Reserve's Underground Vault

24 meters below the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, there is one of the world's most secure underground vaults.

The entire underground vault is about half the size of a football field, and is surrounded by the hard rock of Manhattan Island.

里面被分隔成122个库房，最大的库房可以存放大约10.7万块金锭，堆起来有3米高、3米宽、5米多长

This vault has no door at all, only a solid steel cylinder that is 2.7 meters high and weighs 90 tons. The outside of the steel cylinder is reinforced with a reinforced concrete wall weighing 140 tons.

There is a narrow passage 3 meters long in the center of the steel cylinder. With a simple operation of a switch, the steel cylinder can be rotated 90 degrees to reveal the passage for people to enter and exit.

After World War II, the United States became the financial center of the Western world, and countries transported their gold reserves there for storage to facilitate transactions.

At its peak in 1973, it housed more than 12000 tons of gold from over 60 countries around the world.

This amount is roughly 30% of the world's total gold reserves.

Each of the 122 underground vaults was sealed with an iron door, and each door had a number indicating the country or institution where the gold bars were stored.

Which countries have gold reserves here is a top secret, known only to a very small number of senior bank officials.

The extraction of gold must be supervised by a three-person team, consisting of personnel from the accounting, management, and security departments. Each vault has three locks, which must be opened separately by each of these three individuals.

Everyone attempting to enter the vault must undergo an iris scan.

The camera has pre-stored the iris scans of each staff member inside the vault; after scanning, the computer immediately checks and records the data.

If the corresponding iris record cannot be found, the iris scanner will refuse to open the door for you and will sound an alarm.

Everyone walks with a different gait. Based on this principle, an "automatic foot camera" was installed in the vault.

Every step a person takes in the vault area is accurately located and recorded by cameras. By comparing this with previous step records, imposters can be identified immediately.

Whenever new security equipment becomes available on the market, it is installed here to ensure the safety of the vault.

For over 50 years, there has never been a single accident here, whether it was related to equipment or theft.

It's no exaggeration to say that this place is so impenetrable that even a nuclear bomb couldn't break it open.

Over the years, countless people have tried to steal from this underground vault, but no one has ever succeeded.

Now, Sun Zhiwei has some ideas about this place.

Because he had seen a report in his later life that the annual inspection of the M country's treasury was extremely rudimentary.

Each time, they only checked the seals, without verifying the gold bar serial numbers, measuring the purity, or taking inventory of all stock.

Even when members of Congress brought reporters to inspect the site, they only found 6% of the gold, and there were even cases where the gold audit report was lost.

The gold audit report records the flow of gold, and this thing was lost and nothing happened.

Later, when many countries requested the return of gold from their vaults, they either postponed, delayed, or even refused to return the gold altogether.

Therefore, he concluded that the gold in the vault was likely incomplete, and he didn't know how much had been taken out.

Since they don't allow verification or extraction, the exact amount of gold inside remains a mystery.

Since others can take it, what's wrong with Sun Zhiwei taking some?

He came here first to investigate the situation, to see how much gold was inside, and then to take out a few gold brick samples.

The Federal Reserve's standard gold bars are now rectangular and come in two sizes:

一种是100盎司的，长41mm、宽24mm、厚3mm，重量为3.110千克。

另一种是400盎司的，长185mm、宽76mm、厚17mm，重量为12.441千克。

Especially the 400-ounce kind, it's really almost like a brick. The trapezoidal gold bars that are commonly seen in later generations were cast after 1986, and they don't exist now. Each gold bar is engraved with the place of casting, number, and purity. The purity of all gold bars is controlled between 99.5% and 99.9%, there is no 100% pure gold.

This is mainly because pure gold is too soft, making it unsuitable for preservation and transportation.

Therefore, to increase hardness, small amounts of metals such as copper and silver are added to gold bars. As a result, most gold bars are not always a bright golden color; they often have a reddish or whitish tint.

Sun Zhiwei has a batch of gold bars from his own Swell gold mine. Compared with the gold bars from the Federal Reserve, they are almost identical except for the words on them.

On the afternoon of September 30, Sun Zhiwei arrived in New York and drove his car into the garage at 206 Central Park North, 81st Street.

I haven't been here for more than half a month. The floor of the room has accumulated a layer of dust, the lawn in the yard has grown much taller, and the leaves on the ground have not been swept up, making it look a bit messy.

He used the space to clean the dust out of the room and then put his luggage away.

He then prepared dinner while calling the neighborhood homeowners association (HOA) to ask them to send someone to mow his lawn.

A short while later, Ms. Daisy from the HOA arrived with two workers and tools.

"Mr. James, are you home right now?"

Sun Zhiwei leaned out of the kitchen window and called out to the door, "Ms. Daisy, I'm here. Please come in."

They arrived really quickly. Luckily, he only cooked a fried egg noodle dish, and it was already done in no time.

He carried the noodles and fork back to the living room, just as Ms. Daisy walked in.

“Mr. James, I’ve got the workers on the go. Are you having dinner?”

"No, I just drove back from Washington and didn't eat lunch, so this is my lunch."

"Have a seat, whiskey or black tea?"

"Black tea, please."

Sun Zhiwei made her a cup of black tea and then returned to the table to eat noodles with a fork.

"Your work is really tough; you're away on business trips for more than half a month at a time."

"It's alright, I have to visit several properties, but I'm not in a hurry. Taking my time and strolling around is also a pleasure."

"Would you like some Chinese noodles? We still have some in the kitchen. I learned how to make them from a Chinese chef in Chinatown, and they're really delicious."

"No thanks."

"Why does Ms. Daisy have time to come over? Why doesn't she just call the workers?"

"Here's the thing, the community is planning a social party and would like to invite you to attend."

"As you know, most of the buildings in our area are commercial buildings, and there aren't many residential buildings, but they are all quite respectable. Getting together can also help expand our social network."

"Therefore, we hold several events every year in the form of community organization and resident sponsorship."

"There happens to be one tonight, on the lawn in the Central Park across the street. Would you be interested in joining?"

"What a coincidence! I'll go try it out too. What are the sponsorship fees like?"

"If you don't have any special requirements, it's $500 per household."

Does that mean I can pay extra if I have special requests? But since we're not very familiar with each other yet, he didn't ask.

"Okay, I'll get the money for you after I finish eating."

(End of this chapter)