India’s central bank wants to be very clear: it did not sell $12 billion in gold. The Reserve Bank of India issued a pointed denial after a Bloomberg Economics analysis suggested the RBI had offloaded a substantial chunk of its gold reserves over a two-week stretch ending May 22, 2026.
The RBI confirmed its gold stock remains at 880.52 tonnes, a figure it published on June 3, 2026. India’s Press Information Bureau went further, labeling the media claims as outright “fake.”
What Bloomberg’s analysis actually said
The speculation originated from a Bloomberg Economics analysis released on June 3, 2026. The report examined shifts in the RBI’s balance sheet and flagged what appeared to be a roughly $12 billion reduction in gold reserves over two weeks.
The analysis also noted that the RBI had acquired $7.5 billion in foreign-currency assets during the same period. Bloomberg’s interpretation: the central bank might have been swapping gold for dollars, potentially to bolster foreign exchange reserves as oil prices climbed and geopolitical tensions in West Asia intensified.
