Portugal received U.S. gold for Nazi loot-document
By Arthur Spiegelman
NEW YORK, July 10 (Reuter) - At the height of the Second World War, Portugal used the Swiss National Bank to swap 20 tons of looted Nazi gold for gold held in the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank and the Bank of Canada, according to a U.S. intelligence document released on Thursday.
The swap was made to eliminate evidence that Portugal was receiving gold stolen by the Nazis, the document said. The Allies had warned Portugal and other neutral nations they would face reprisals if they bought looted German gold.
The Sept. 10, 1944, document details ``a classic money-laundering operation,'' said World Jewish Congress Vice President Kalman Sultanik, whose organization released the previously classified report.
The document, described as coming from ``a very confidential source,'' said that in 1942 the Bank of Portugal deposited about four tons of gold it had bought from Nazi Germany in its account with the Swiss National Bank.
The Swiss transferred the same amount of gold it had in a Bank of Canada account to the Portuguese, who, in turn, transferred title to the gold in its Swiss account.
In 1944, the Swiss and Portuguese swapped another 15 tons of looted Nazi for gold held in the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank in New York.
The document said the Bank of Portugal's objective ``is to get rid of gold purchased from the Reichsbank through the Banque Nationale Suisse''.
``The bad guys win all around. The Nazis have sold their gold. The Portuguese have swapped their looted gold for clean gold and the Swiss National Bank earns commissions on each transaction,'' Sultanik said. ``All it took was a few strokes of the pen.''
The 20 tons of gold was worth $24 million in the 1940s and would be valued at about $220 million today.
Sultanik said the transactions might have been legal because the Swiss had the right to transfer gold to other accounts and there was no evidence that the U.S. and Canadian banks were aware of what was happening.
``Wittingly or not, the U.S. and Canadian banks were disguising the movement of looted Nazi gold and this helps explain one of the mysteries of World War II -- why the war started with Portugal having no gold reserves in New York and ends with it having 258 tons of gold in the Federal Reserve,'' Sultanik said.
He said it was now apparent that a significant percentage, if not most, of the 258 tons came from Portugal's purchase of looted Nazi gold.
The WJC said present-day Portugal had cooperated with its efforts to trace Nazi gold movements and an investigating commission headed by former prime minister Mario Soares was making rapid progress.
After the war, the Allies demanded that Portugal return an estimated 139 tons of looted Nazi gold that it bought but the country only gave back four tons of Dutch gold that it had in its banks, in its original wrappers.
A 1949 letter of protest delivered to Portugal by the British Embassy in Lisbon on behalf of the Allies said: ``Gold once looted remains loot and the Allies maintain that the thief has no title (and) cannot transmit a title.'' |
