The Great Silver Attempted Swindle

Authored by Matthew Piepenberg via VonGreyerz.gold,

On Friday, January 30, 2026, the world learned (or rediscovered) just how grotesquely rigged the paper gold and silver markets truly are.

 

Despite no change whatsoever in global supply and demand forces, silver went from a $120 near-high on Thursday to a $78 low on Friday, marking this as the largest single-day crash (35%) in the silver market in 44 years.

It goes without saying that such price moves don’t happen naturally.

Something far more engineered was in play, a trick which many investors may not immediately recognize, but which anyone familiar with the nefarious insider mechanics of banking, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the COMEX and the London Bullion Market Association can see as plainly as a dentist sees a cavity.

So, what happened?

Look No Further than a Banker’s Rescue

As usual, whenever something so openly rigged, insider and market-distorting occurs, the very first place to look for a smoking gun, guilty child and a liar’s grin is among the banks, most of whom are and were drowning in levered silver short positions by Thursday night’s $120 silver price.

This meant that with each passing day of rising silver, the banks were getting squeezed to the point of self-destruction.

This is not fable but fact. Rising silver was literally strangling the big banks. They needed to exit their short squeeze as soon as possible, but preferably at a lower rather than higher silver price.

And then, almost by magic, silver conveniently fell like a rock to save their collectively levered @$$es.

Coincidences Galore…

But was it really any “magical” coincidence that JP Morgan was able to exit its massive (and fatally stupid) short exposure at the absolute bottom/floor of the silver price on Friday? That is, at the perfect moment?

Was it also any coincidence that the London Metals Exchange went completely dark on that very same day?

And was it just an equal coincidence that HSBC, the second largest silver short holder on the LBMA, went completely offline as the choreographed Friday massacre in silver took place?

Or do you think it may also be just another coincidence that the self-regulated COMEX raised its margin requirements yet again on that same Friday to shake out even more of the levered longs, which were otherwise pummeling the short-exposed bankers?

And finally, do you think it was just a coincidence that the announcement of a new Fed Sheriff came that very same day, on the eve of a weekend, and well after the Asian markets had closed?

Engineered Carnage

Folks, let’s be very clear. What happened on “Silver Friday” was neither normal market action nor a convergence of statistically impossible coincidences.

It was an entirely engineered flushing of the silver price to save a fatally trapped cabal of bankers caught behind the grassy knoll in the mother of all short-squeezes.

But as I had warned as recently as a month ago, such desperate measures are nothing new, especially in the more volatile silver trade. Or stated otherwise: “We’ve seen this movie before.”

Same Tricks, Different Dates

In 1980, for example, when the Hunt brothers famously sought to corner the silver market, they had caught the attention and fear of the market manipulators in the US and UK, who, for obvious reasons, feared a rising silver price.

The self-regulated US exchanges have the luxury of changing the rules in the middle of a chess match, which means they effectively always win (i.e., cheat).

As the Hunt brothers helped take silver toward an alarming $50.00 in 1980, the CME simply changed the rules mid-game by making the exchange a sell-only platform, which naturally crushed not only natural price discovery, but also took 80% off the silver price with a single rule change.

How’s that for a rigged game?

But the highlights don’t end there.

In the post 2008 crisis era, silver began to make positive strides north yet again. By 2011, silver hit the spooky $49.00 level, and so the equally spooked CME proceeded to raise the margin costs for silver trades five times in two weeks.

By effectively raising the “buy-in” to play poker with the silver exchanges, the new rules (i.e., the “House”) forced most of the silver longs to sell at mass, which directly precipitated a 48% fall in an otherwise naturally bullish silver market.

Of course, we just saw similar games played in December of 2025, when the COMEX imposed margin hikes yet again in the silver markets. As I warned just weeks ago, this was a sign of desperation but not capitulation. 

The rigged game against silver would not end so easily.

Silver Friday…

Which brings us to Silver Friday, one of the greatest price spoofs ever witnessed in the totally rigged, and now totally desperate paper metals markets.

As silver hit $120, the levered bankers and the incestuous system they rigged went into open panic and cheat mode against that otherwise revered notion of dying capitalism, which the rest of us call “free price discovery.”

By adding more margin hikes on Friday, the insiders forced a sell-off in the paper silver markets and covered their embarrassing shorts at a 35% discount off natural price action.

This was the market equivalent of Lance Armstrong conducting his own drug tests…

What’s Next?

If some of you are glad to understand the twisted plumbing behind the manipulation of silver (and gold) in the COMEX cesspool, a theme we’ve covered numerous times elsewhere, you may nevertheless be concerned.

That is, you may be glad to see how the game is rigged, but your next question, naturally, is how does that help you as a silver or gold investor if the House always wins?

After all, it may be nice to call out a dirty cop, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to beat one.

Or stated even more simply, if the game is so openly rigged, how does one ever win? What can you do with your gold and silver in such a corrupt backdrop?

Fair Question

In fact, the disconcerting tricks behind Silver Friday are by no means the end of the longer story for silver in particular or precious metals in general, as the exchanges are clearly terrified of silver and gold’s inevitable direction northwards.

They see what we see.

If anything, the desperation behind this headline move only signals a stronger silver and gold market ahead.

Why?

Supply & Demand Gets the Last Laugh

Because the crash of Silver Friday did not solve the much larger problem (or more powerful forces) of basic supply and demand.

Silver has seen five consecutive years of 200M ounces/year of supply deficits, totaling over 1B ounces in collective silver supply deficits.

All Silver Friday achieved was a flushing out of uber-levered speculators and a classic butt-saving of those ever-so-stupid commercial banks who found themselves trapped (and now rescued) from the mother of all short-squeezes.

A rigged system which favors insider bankers is nothing new. We’ve written about their staggering games for years.

But here’s the rub.

Rock Now Beats Paper

What we just witnessed on Silver Friday is pure confirmation that the silver (and gold) paper markets are dying before our watering yet wide-open eyes.

In October, for example, the London exchange effectively seized up. They were out of physical silver. In the summer of 2025, the COMEX saw 100% delivery of gold, leaving an exchange whose typical delivery percentage was 1%.

In short: The world wants physical metals, not paper tricks.

The CME and COMEX cheaters may be able to brazenly manipulate the paper price of silver, but they have yet to find an alchemist’s ability to create actual silver.

Moving forward, actual buyers of real silver will move further and further away from the now discredited and increasingly desperate and openly rigged paper markets in the US and UK.

The physical metals will be in greater demand, and the once-powerful paper exchanges will lose their leverage and influence.

Industrial as well as monetary demand for silver will continue to push demand and physical pricing higher.

As for gold, the rising demand for real money (physical gold) over paper currencies will continue its secular and historical momentum north for all the reasons we’ve already covered.

This rising preeminence of physical gold and silver over levered paper gold and silver will steadily outpace the increasingly desperate and disclosed mechanizations on the paper exchanges.

Or stated more simply: The CME may have won a paper battle on Silver Friday, but rising demand for physical silver and gold will win the war on paper systems losing credibility, power and options with each tick of a global debt bubble and currency timebomb.

For those who hold physical gold and silver as part of a long game of wealth preservation against the short game of desperate yet dying paper money, Friday’s speedbump was nothing more than that: A bump in an otherwise wide-open road forward.

Oat Milk vs Cows A Short Study in Capitalist Deceit

 

Oat Milk vs Cows A Short Study in Capitalist Deceit By Nick Griffin feb 2026 follow Nick on Substack follow Nick on X Oat milk is marketed as the sustainable milk alternative. Let’s examine what goes into your £2.50 carton. Swedish oats grown in monoculture requiring pesticides, harvested with diesel machinery, shipped to processing facility. The oats are milled, mixed with water and enzymes, processed to break down starches, mixed with seed oils, fortified with synthetic vitamins, stabilised with additives, packaged in plastic-lined cartons, refrigerated, and distributed. The ingredient list: water, oats, rapeseed oil, calcium carbonate, calcium phosphates, salt, vitamins D2 and B12, potassium iodide, vitamin B2. You’re drinking processed grain slurry with seed oil and synthetic vitamins. This required industrial processing, chemical inputs, fortification to be nutritionally comparable to milk, and packaging in plastic. Compare to milk: Grass grows. Cow eats grass. Cow produces milk. Milk is pasteurised and bottled. Contains complete protein, naturally occurring vitamins, calcium, and dozens of beneficial compounds. No fortification needed. No seed oil added. No processing beyond heat treatment. But oat milk is marketed as sustainable because they counted the cow’s methane and ignored the industrial processing, monoculture oat farming, pesticide use, fortification manufacturing, and seed oil addition required to make oat milk nutritionally incomparable to actual milk. And it’s promoted because the agri-business corporations spend a fortune not just on direct marketing, but also on influencer drives to push silly teenage girls towards eating disorders including vegetarianism and veganism. When you’re next out shopping, tell someone looking at the Oat Milk section that it’s ultra-processed grain slurry. If you’ve got some in the fridge, throw it out and switch to buying real milk. If by chance you’re allergic to cows’ milk, give goats’ milk a try instead. Enjoy! Become a free subscriber to Nick Griffin Beyond the Pale. For the full experience, upgrade your subscription.

Inquiry dodges Islam’s crucial role in grooming gangs scandal

Inquiry dodges Islam’s crucial role in grooming gangs scandal

By T Dieppe

 LAST month, details of the Independent Inquiry into Grooming Gangs were finally published by the government. This included draft terms of reference which determine what it can and cannot consider. They are very carefully worded and agreed.

There has been a lot of discussion about the role of religion in grooming gang abuse. Late last year, Christian Concern published a report by internationally respected academic Dr Mark Durie, an Australian Anglican priest and a scholar in linguistics and theology, into UK grooming gangs and Islam. He outlines eight aspects of Islamic law and theology that influence and enable grooming gang criminality. These are:

1.    The doctrine of the superiority of Muslims over non-Muslims.

2.    The doctrine of loyalty and disavowal, also known as ‘love and hate for the sake of God’.

3.    The superiority and dominance of men over women.

4.    The mandated seclusion of women by men.

5.    The religious practice of forced marriage, and the lack of a concept of an age of consent.

6.    The perceived threat of dangerous female sexuality.

7.    The practice of sex slavery as an aspect of the laws of jihad.

8.    Dhimmitude and the treatment of conquered non-Muslim peoples in Islamic law.

The report concludes with 11 policy recommendations to tackle the Islamic nature of these grooming gangs.

Although the Prime Minister has said that the inquiry will ‘leave no stone unturned’ in its investigations, the draft terms of reference exclude looking at the role of religion in the abuse. This despite the many expert witnesses who have insisted that the role of religion and culture should be part of its remit.

The draft terms of reference make no reference to Islam or to Muslims at all. There are just three references to ‘religion’. It is very telling what they say.

Paragraph 4.3 is the key paragraph containing two of the references to ‘religion’. Here is what it says:

‘The inquiry should examine how ethnicity, religion or culture played a role in responses at a local and national level, as well as other issues of denial, as discussed in the National Audit. It will also consider the background (including ethnicity, religion and culture) of perpetrators and victims.’

Notice that it says the inquiry should consider how ‘ethnicity role of culture played a role in responses’ [emphasis added]. The inquiry is only to consider the role of religion in responses to the abuse, not the role of religion in facilitating or enabling the abuse itself! It goes on to say that it will consider the background ‘including ethnicity, religion and culture’ of the perpetrators and victims. Again this does not consider the role of religion in the abuse itself.

The other mention of ‘religion’ occurs in paragraph 4.5.2 which lists various things ‘the inquiry may consider’. These include ‘whether ethnicity, religion or culture played a role in the response’.

Note again that there is no consideration of the role of religion in the actual abuse itself. If the role of religion in the abuse is not mentioned in the terms of reference, then the inquiry will certainly not consider it. The draft terms of reference have been worded so that the government can say that ‘the inquiry will consider the role of religion’, but nevertheless the inquiry will not look at the role of religion in the abuse itself. 

Lord Pearson asked a written parliamentary question about this. It reads:

‘To ask His Majesty’s Government whether the Independent Inquiry into Grooming Gangs will consider the role that religion or culture played in enabling or facilitating abuse by grooming gangs, and not only the role that those factors played in responses to the abuse, as outlined in paragraph 4.3 of the draft terms of reference.’

Lord Hanson of Flint responded for the government as follows:

‘On 9 December 2025, the Home Secretary published the draft Terms of Reference for the Independent Inquiry into Grooming Gangs and asked the Chair to consult on them.

‘Following the consultation, the Chair will make recommendations to the Home Secretary. Final Terms of Reference will be agreed and published by 31 March 2026. The Home Secretary has been clear (in her Oral Statement of 9 December) that the inquiry will consider, explicitly, the background of offenders – including their ethnicity, religion and culture – and whether the authorities failed to properly investigate what happened out of a misplaced desire to protect community cohesion. The inquiry will act without fear or favour, identifying individual, institutional and systemic failure, inadequate organisational responses, and failures of leadership.

‘The Home Secretary has also commissioned new research from UK Research and Innovation to address longstanding gaps in our understanding of perpetrators’ backgrounds and motivations, including factors such as ethnicity and religion.’

This response is a tacit admission that the draft terms of reference do not include considering the role of religion in the abuse. Notice the emphasis on:’whether the authorities failed to properly investigate what happened out of a misplaced desire to protect community cohesion’.This is an important aspect, and I am pleased that it will be considered, but it does not include the role of religion in the abuse itself.

Lord Hanson, as if to excuse this omission from the draft terms of reference, goes on to say that the government has commissioned research into ’our understanding of the perpetrator’s backgrounds and motivations, including factor such as ethnicity and religion’. Now that is precisely what we want to see in the inquiry. But it is not there. Instead, research has been commissioned separately on this point. This research was originally mentioned within the government’s announcement of Baroness Longfield as chair of the Independent Inquiry last year. 

It seems then that the government deliberately wants to keep the role of religion in motivating grooming gang abuse out of the scope of the inquiry. To stave off criticism on this point, it has commissioned separate research into this question. But research is not the same as an inquiry. It will not have the powers of an inquiry. We have no details about who is carrying out this research or what resources they have or when the research is expected to be published. Indeed, the government has not promised that this research will ever be published. It may well not be published at all.

When the government announced the details of the inquiry in December, it promised to consult on the draft terms of reference. It said: 

‘As the inquiry is required to finalise the terms of reference by 31 March 2026, the consultation period will be focused and time limited. Further details on how to take part will be shared by the inquiry in early February 2026.’

It is now early February. We will watch with interest for details of the promised consultation. When we have them, we will encourage supporters to respond to the consultation and to insist that the role of religion in motivating and encouraging the criminal abuse of grooming gangs is included in the final terms of reference of the inquiry.

The victims deserve a proper inquiry which will consider all aspects of the horrific grooming gang abuse that has been going on for decades. The role of religion cannot be sidelined. I hope that the final terms of reference make this clear.