The recent sale of the Barclays “secret” gold and precious metals vault, allegedly somewhere inside the M25, to the Chinese bank ICBC – working with alleged African banking interests – highlights the murky role of British banking interests in underpinning the global capitalist economy.
The Barclays vault is one of six such storage centres in or around London, and holds up to 2,000 tonnes of gold, worth £57 billion. It was established in 2012. In 2014 Barclays was fined £26 million for its part in the banking community's gold price rigging scandal. Now to diversify its banking interests it has sold the vault for an undisclosed sum to Chinese-African interests. China takes more than 40 per cent of all gold mined in the world.
Transference of Chinese and African bullion, capital and possible related ill-gotten gains to this vault in London should be seen in connection with research indicating that London is the centre of dirty money secreted from across the world. Extensive foreign buying of property in London is clearly also part of money-laundering activities be it drugs, arms trade, people trafficking etc.
Do we want a Chinese-African vault in Britain? No. Why do they need one?