MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

New shipment of Argentine gold abroad reported

It was the third such shipment under President Milei

A video of an armored truck carrying some 1500 gold bars from Argentina's Central Bank (BCRA) to the Ezeiza International Airport went viral Monday as the third such shipment -worth around US$ 250 million- was presumed to have left for London, it was reported in Buenos Aires. No special security was seen around the vehicle on the highway leading to the air terminal.

According to Argentine Economy Minister Luis Toto Caputo, it was a wise move on the part of the BCRA. “It is a very positive move by the Central. Today you have gold in the Central Bank which is as if you had real estate inside, you cannot use it for anything. On the other hand, if you have it outside, you can get a return. And the reality is that the country needs to maximize the return on its assets. Keeping it locked up in the Central Bank without doing anything for the country is negative. It is better to have it guarded outside where you get paid something,” Caputo said in a TV interview a month ago after previous shipments departed on June 7 and 28.

In this scenario, opposition lawmakers demanded some explanation from Caputo as to what would eventually happen to the gold. “In the end, the campaign slogan that 'The only way out” was Ezeiza seemed to have become true, Congressman Leandro Santoro stressed.

“On July 29 I sent together with Senator Oscar Parrilli a request for public information and note to Luis Caputo demanding explanations on the transfer of the gold assets of Argentines abroad,” recalled Senator Juliana Di Tullio (UxP - BA). “We have not yet obtained an answer. If this persists, I will initiate legal actions”, she also warned on X.

Congressman Sergio Palazzo, who is also secretary-general of the bank workers' union, was the one who first denounced these maneuvers from President Javier Milei's Libertarian administration. He asked the BCRA for information and he got the following reply: “...any data related to the geographic location... may endanger the security of these assets, with its consequent impact on the support of the monetary and exchange policy implemented, the support of deposits and the security of the financial system...”

Any further information was denied pursuant to subsection B of Article 8 of Law 27.275 which bans the disclosing of “...information that could jeopardize the proper functioning of the financial or banking system...,” Palazzo explained on X.

“So much secrecy does nothing but make it clear that they took the gold, that they do not want to tell us what they are or are going to do with it, and that this government does not want citizens to know about their government actions,” he went on.