from Kitco NEWS
All eyes are on Panama today, with leaked documents showing how some of the rich and powerful used the country as a tax haven to hide their wealth. A Panamanian shell company in the country was even linked to one of the biggest gold heists in history. On Sunday night, documents were leaked by German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, implicating 72 current and former heads of states to secret offshore accounts in Panama that helped them hide money and evade taxes. But, for U.S. Global Investors’ chief executive officer, Frank Holmes, the news comes as no surprise and shows the ‘real value’ of gold. ‘It validates that gold is money,’ he says in an interview with Kitco News on Monday. ‘There is audience of people that believe that gold is not money and it is just a commodity.’ As for the yellow metal’s price action, Holmes says April is a ‘sloppy month’ and that gold is going through a transition. The metal started the second quarter lower and ended the day with June Comex gold settling down $4.20 at $1,219.30 an ounce.