This Monday morning, a batch of 1,500 gold bars from the Central Bank of the Argentine Republic (BCRA), valued at approximately 250 million dollars, left for Ezeiza, bound for London, United Kingdom.
A video of an armored truck, without special security, circulating on an AMBA highway went viral and confirmed the already announced operation.
This is the third shipment that has been made, the first with certain details of the operation and also the first following the public statements of Luis Caputo, Minister of Economy.
Why does Argentine gold go to the United Kingdom?
“It is a very positive move by the Central Bank. Today you have gold in the Central Bank, which is like having a property inside, which you cannot use for anything. On the other hand, if you have it outside, you can get a return on it. And the reality is that the country needs to maximize the returns on its assets. Having it locked up in the Central Bank without doing anything for the country is negative. It is better to have it kept outside where you get paid something,” Luis Caputo explained a month ago in a television interview.
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The statement was made after being consulted by Antonio Laje on LN+ regarding a request for access to public information by Sergio Palazzo, national deputy of Unión por la Patria.
The document is addressed to the president of the Central Bank, Santiago Bausili, with the aim of being informed “if there are operations to send gold bullion abroad during the month of June, especially if there was one shipment on 6/7/2024 and another on 6/28/2024.” This document also requests information on the currency, quantity, amount, commercial characteristics, destination, carrier, airline and if new shipments are planned.
Luis Caputo, Minister of Economy of the Nation.
On those dates, the bullion was shipped on British Airways to an unknown destination, although it is assumed that it was the Bank of England.
There are still no official responses from the BCRA, which remains within the period granted by Law 27,275.
Santiago Bausili, former Minister of Finance of the Nation between 2017-2019 and current president of the BCRA.
Palazzo himself offered hypotheses regarding the fate of the gold in an interview on Radio Con Vos: “One operation could be to take the gold out to transform it into dollar bills. The second is to take gold through the Bank for International Settlements, in Basel (Switzerland), which is a congregation of central banks, where they give you a loan of the same amount of gold that you leave as collateral. The third option would be to take the gold out because he (Caputo) also said that it is safer to have it abroad.”