Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
During the war, Portugal was the second largest recipient of Nazi gold, after Switzerland. Initially the Nazi trade with Portugal was in hard currency, but in 1941 the Central Bank of Portugal established that much of this was counterfeit and Portuguese leader António de Oliveira Salazar demanded all further payments in gold. [22]
The British ambassador to Portugal, Ronald Campbell, told Salazar that much of the gold was of "disputed origin", but Salazar ignored this. [38] In 1998 the United States alleged that much of the gold had been stolen from Holocaust victims by German authorities. In response, a commission of inquiry was established [39] in 1999, led by Mario ...
Portugal allowed the United Kingdom to trade and receive credit backed by pounds sterling, allowing Great Britain to obtain vital goods at a time when it was short of gold and escudos and while all other neutrals were prepared to trade sterling only against gold. By 1945 the United Kingdom owed Portugal over $322 million under this arrangement ...
Of the nearly 100 tons of gold laundered through Swiss banks, only 4 tons were returned. [6] The Banco de Portugal, the central bank of Portugal, would regularly purchase Nazi gold held at the Swiss National Bank, according to a 1944 document from the American Overseas Special Services. [8] [9]
Last August two treasure hunters said they had "irrefutable proof" of the existence of a World War II-era Nazi ghost train filled with stolen gold.
The London Conference on Nazi Gold was an international conference held in London in December 1997. Representatives of 41 nations participated in the Conference, including France, the United Kingdom, the United States, the three countries from the World War II Allies that fought Nazi Germany and the Axis powers that oversaw the post-War disposition of Nazi gold.
Both the Bank of Canada and the US Federal Reserve Bank helped to launder Nazi gold by transferring it from a Swiss account to one held by neutral Portugal. A single transaction in June 1942 by the Canadian bank moved 4.02 metric tons of gold. [28]
The treasure would be composed of "carved silver, gold jewellery, pearls and stones of value, Chinese porcelain, rich fabrics, paintings and perhaps 500,000 pesos". [10] The stories about this treasure are varied, some place it in the environment of the Roques de Anaga , while others place it in the zone of Punta del Hidalgo and the cave of San ...