How a tweet from the New York Fire Department started a conspiracy theory that an inferno had engulfed J.P. Morgan's gold vault



A rumor gained some traction on the Internet over the weekend that there was a fire in the lower Manhattan vault of J.P. Morgan Chase that contains much of the financial institution's gold reserves.

The rumor began when a video was posted online showing dozens of fire trucks and ambulances descending upon a location near the New York Stock Exchange - just a few blocks from J.P. Morgan's former headquarters at One Chase Manhattan Plaza, where it's rumored to stash its gold.

The rumor gained more steam as the New York Fire Department posted on Twitter that there was a 'commercial fire in a vault' at 15 Broad Street, which is just a few blocks from the banks supposed gold vault.

Rumor Mill: The Internet was littered with rumors that there was a fire in J.P. Morgan's gold vault underneath this building in lower Manhattan over the weekend

Conspiracy theorists began littering the Internet with allegations that the world's second-largest financial institution - with more than $2.5trilion in assets - was in the beginning stages of a force majeure; an unavoidable accident that would free J.P. Morgan from some of its financial obligations.



But - as a financial conspiracy blogger points out - there's no evidence to suggest that the fire occurred in J.P. Morgan's vault, and the company hasn't made any claims that it did.



As the blog Zero Hedge points out, the FDNY said the fire was in a vault at 15 Broad Street, which is several blocks away from where the blog claims to have proven J.P. Morgan's vault is located - under its former headquarters at One Chase Manhattan Plaza.

'If there was a "fire" in JPM's vault, the response would have been not at 15 Broad Street, but over half a mile away at the perfectly fire-accessible Liberty Street (between the NY Fed and 1 CMP), across from the real JPM vault fire doors,' the blogger notes.

Not quite: the supposed 'vault fire' was nearly a half-mile from where J.P. Morgan Chase is rumored to stash its gold

The blogger says the rumors are the product of confusion over where J.P. Morgan actually stores its gold.

'It appears the confusion stems from the Fire Brigade's designation of the fire as taking place at "JP Morgan's building" which indeed is where the Fire Brigade was located. However, it is the 23 Wall Street building, also known as the "JPMorgan building" formerly owned by JPM, and subsequently owned by Morgan Guaranty Trust Company, best known for being the site of the September 16, 1920 Wall Street bombing, when 38 people were killed and 400 injured,' he writes. 'Ironically, as was then reported, "because the Morgan building was so well known, many assumed that the target of the assumed anarchist bombing was actually the bank itself."'

In fact, J.P. Morgan's headquarters currently are located at 270 Park Avenue - about 70 blocks north of Saturday's vault fire.

