What's more, one indicator I've kept my eye on tells me that now that it's free of price manipulation, silver could go up by at least another 35% by the end of the year. And silver shares? Higher still, and I can show you how I aim to profit.

Look, I know what you're thinking. London can be a pretty dangerous city to drive in at the best of times. Sometimes a car accident is just an accident.

But this 'accident' occurred just one day after Andrew Maguire blew the whistle on banking giants JPMorgan Chase and HBSC, exposing what is arguably the biggest silver price manipulation scandal in history.

Less than one week later, the King World News website – the media outlet that broke the story – was hacked. An exclusive interview with Maguire was erased, in which he repeated his allegations.

What went on here?

And what's the investment angle for you?

First, the silver market is small compared to most other commodities, and a lot easier to influence.

But why bother influencing it in the first place?

There's been speculation about that since JP Morgan and HSBC were named in a lawsuit last year. The conspiracy theorists believe this was a big bank plot to keep silver artificially low to maintain the appeal of the dollar and other doomed fiat currencies. That's probably a stretch. I think the bankers were just after what they're always after: more money.

Here's what we know...

It's alleged that around June 2008, when JP Morgan acquired Bear Sterns, JP and HSBC started a conspiracy to manipulate the silver market by putting massive 'short positions' on the silver price. A short is an order to sell an investment at a certain price. When someone is selling in vast quantities it makes it very hard for the price to rise.

JP Morgan was able to generate short term profits as their actions caused 'long' investors to take losses.

Through a series of pre-arranged 'secret signals', JP Morgan Chase alerted HBSC of an imminent trade. A handful of traders who also recognised these covert signals shorted the metal alongside JP Morgan.

I realise this sounds like a conspiracy theory. But, thanks to Andrew Maguire's decision to turn whistleblower, it's now a matter of public knowledge. You'll find the scandal reported everywhere from Bloomberg to The Australian.

What you won't find reported is the little-known money-making opportunity these events have opened up to Aussie investors who act quickly.

And it's 100% legal, too.

According to the lawsuit, those in-the-know realised substantial illegal profits in connection with their silver-manipulation scheme. And those NOT in the know lost substantial amounts of money.

Metal trader Andrew Maguire had overheard JPMorgan Chase traders bragging once too often about how much money they were making from the scheme.

When Maguire went public, these two banks had a lot to lose. Criminal charges... tarnished reputations... and a whole lot of easy money. No wonder Maguire was in their firing line....

Bart Chilton, Commissioner of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced that he "is fully aware of fraudulent efforts to persuade and deviously control silver prices."

Things don't look good for the two banks. But they could look good for YOU, if you play this situation smartly, as I'll show shortly.

Within days of their cover being blown, JPMorgan and HBSC started quietly reducing their silver positions.

At the same time silver demand started to rocket. This helped cause a rapid increase in the price of silver – it gained over 78% in 2010, reaching its highest level in over 30 years.

As you can see from the chart below, silver took a breather and investors took profits for the first month of 2011. Now it's surged back and even eclipsed its old high...

That's some recovery. But, if what I'm reading now is correct, the current silver price will seem a steal 12 months from now.

I'll show you why in a second.

I'm also going to tell you about the best way to invest in the next phase of the silver boom in 2011 – and it's not buying bullion...

As the Feds launch criminal probes of JPMorgan Chase and its trading activity in the precious metals market, I've done some investigating myself... and I've come up with what I believe is a potentially lucrative way to invest in the silver boom, for a fraction of the cost of buying bullion.

Why am I bringing this information to you now?

Let's recap...

JP Morgan has been busted as the world's largest silver price manipulator.

At one point, it's estimated the bank had a $1.5 TRILLION short position keeping the silver price down. Based on some of the latest conjecture, Morgan's short position totaled at its peak a whopping 3.3 billion ounces.

That's roughly equal to:

We don't know for sure if this is true. We DO know that the gig is up for JP Morgan. It is being attacked on multiple fronts and lawsuits from disgruntled traders are mounting.

More importantly, as I said, it is stripping back its short position. According to the Financial Times of London, "JP Morgan has reduced a large position at the U.S. silver market..."

What that means is this: The fundamentals can dominate the silver market once more without any external interference... and, as I'll show you, fundamentals for silver are outstanding this year...

February 22, 2011 – Libya crumbles as Colonel Gaddafi's hardline dictatorship teeters on the brink of destruction.

As the threat of civil war intensifies, insecurity grips the global markets...and silver reaches a 31 year high.

"The mix of Middle Eastern jitters and inflation concerns continues to create a favourable price environment for the precious metals, particularly gold and silver," James Moore, analyst at TheBullionDesk.com in London, said.

So what you've got now is yet another layer of uncertainty underpinning precious metals in 2011.

This is on top of the return of the threat of "double dip recession" in America.

Food inflation is continuing to hammer developing economies... ones that have already been wrecked by four years of Global Financial Crisis.

In a nutshell: there is little room for more 'crisis', but that's exactly what we've got unfolding right now in the Arab world.

Investors are scared and fleeing to 'chaos hedges' like gold and silver. Now JP has been busted, there's nothing artificially dampening the price. But how far can silver go? Well, let's see what the gold/silver ratio is telling us...

For several thousand years the gold price has been fifteen times higher than the silver price on average. This fifteen to one 'gold-to-silver price ratio' remained right up to the start of the twentieth Century. Then as Central Banks grew in power, silver lost its importance, dropping to around 70 times less valuable than gold – which is where it has sat for the last few decades.

But this ratio is now dropping fast. Silver's recent price jump means it is now just 40 times less valuable than gold.

Source: Goldprice.org

Now here's the thing: the silver price would still have to triple to more than $90/ounce to get this ratio back to fifteen to one.

Could the recent resurgence in silver carry the asset that high?

Let's look at what's underpinning the silver market in 2011...

JP Morgan's fiddling was the silver story of 2010. Silver is up nearly twenty dollars an ounce and over 100% in the last twelve months.

This year, silver will take prime position as a risk-asset in one of the riskiest geopolitical climates in decades...

• Oil prices are soaring again... For decades the West has relied on the corrupt oil producing governments of the Middle East for their oil supplies. Now many of these governments are falling. Will the new governments in these countries continue to favour America as their prime customer? If more governments fall, could we see oil at $150, even $200 a barrel this year? As long as these questions remain, so will soaring demand for safe haven investments like silver...
  
  
• Silver is being bought by the ute-load. Silver coin sales have gone through the roof. The US Mint and Canadian Mint are setting new record silver sales each month. Over at the Perth Mint, sales of 1oz Australian Kookaburras are going through the roof.
  
  "To date 320,000 2011-dated coins have been shipped and we're currently processing orders for another 10,000," says Perth Mint's Stephen Ward. "So this year's release holds the record as the best-selling 1oz Kookaburra ever."
  
  
• Silver's supply chain is tight... Fifty percent of the silver supply is used by industry. Medical industries are now behind a lot of demand for silver's unique antibacterial properties. And as so little silver is needed in each product, the silver price is irrelevant. The same huge demand will still be there if the silver price did indeed triple.
  
  
• ETF's are on a silver spending spree... Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) hold about 60% of the world's silver stockpile already. There's really not much silver out there left to buy, and the ETFs are quickly buying what's left.
  
  Says Adam Hamilton of Zeal Intelligence: "A major driver of silver's recent surge was stock-market buying of the flagship silver ETF, SLV. The larger and more popular this fund grows, the greater its ongoing impact on silver prices."
  
  
• The Middle East is going to remain a wild card for the rest of the year. On the back of the current Libyan uprising, Silver has just jumped to its highest since 1980 above $34 an ounce. "Silver is moving so fast. That's scary. But with the unrest and tension in the Middle East and rising oil prices, I reckon it will stay firm," said a dealer in Singapore.
  
  
• The big investment banks are being forced into a "short squeeze"... The likes of JP Morgan and HSBC will attempt to cover their massive short positions as the price of silver continues to rise. To do this, they need to buy silver, which will add to the upward pressure – something called a "short squeeze". In October 2008 a short squeeze in car producer VW's shares caused the company's share price to quadruple in a week, making it the world's largest company by market value.
  
  
  

In a nutshell: 2011 has already become the most dramatic year of this century – that includes 2001 – and it still has ten months to go! Obviously, we can only hope that events play out with the minimum of violence and some kind of stability returns soon.

But I think what's going on in the Arab world could be the spark that drives silver to several more triple decade highs in the months to come.