Mint reveals how it lost a fortune in gold

Inadvertent slag sales and miscounts lost 17,500 troy ounces? I suppose that's easier than saying we found tungsten/lead filled bars.

More than $3 million in government gold was unwittingly sold off at a fraction of its value as refinery slag, while $8 million more was miscounted and never left the Royal Canadian Mint, the Crown corporation revealed Monday in a full accounting of how it lost track of a fortune in gold for a year.

A series of miscalculations and blunders in the mint's gold refinery dating back to 2005 were responsible for 17,500 troy ounces — a system of weights for precious metals — of gold going missing from the mint's Ottawa inventory count last October, the mint announced in a 12-page report.

Source: http://www.windsorstar.com/Mint+reveals+lost+fortune+gold/2367398/story.html