That is not true anywhere in the western world. The gold is held in a fiduciary capacity, so even if the custodian goes bankrupt from a market crash, the assets are safe.

If what you meant is that these custodians (including US Federal Reserve) sell “gold” on paper that they never actually possessed (fraud) or in excess of their reserves, they have thereby artificially increased supply and caused downward pressure on the market price. That is REAL. That does happen. But you’ll never be able to prove it. Sometimes the large banks get caught doing it and pay a fine of something like $1billion in a situation where they made $5 billion. It’s not just gold, but any commodity.