In 1979, the Helvetian Assembly passed the Federal Reserves Contingency Act which gave the authority to the Confederate Reserve to take any former holdings of the Federal Reserves. From 1980 to 1983, the Confederate Reserves conducted extractions, the two largest being the removal of gold form the United States Bullion Depository at Fort Knox and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. International claims in 1997 portrayed that the actions by the Helvetian government was theft.