$7½m Bonds Burned

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30093, 29 March 1963, Page 11

$7½m Bonds Burned

(N.Z J l . A.-Reuter—Copyright) SAN FRANCISCO, March 27. Officials of the United States Federal Reserve Bank said today it was virtually certain that 7,500,000 dollars’ worth of missing Government securities had been destroyed accidentally, probably by burning with waste paper, the Associated Press reported. The negotiable certificates disappeared last August, but their disappearance was confirmed only today. “In our opinion this was a million to one human error and nobody is being blamed or disciplined for it,” said the president of the district Federal Reserve Bank in San Francisco, Mr Eliot Swan. The certificates, which represent collateral on loans to menibei banks, were kept in the vault in tan manila envelopes. Mr Swan said exhaustive investigation by the secret service and other agencies produced no evidence that the certificates had been removed from the vaults. Mr Swan said that apparently while securities were being transferred from an envelope during a routine audit the 7,500,000 dollars’ worth were inadvertently left and the envelope discarded. There would be no loss to the Treasury Department or any of the member banks of the Federal reserve system. “There is no question but that the Treasury will reimburse this bank upon the certificates reaching their date of maturity,’’ he said.