[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

During WW II my dad and others, with Patton’s Third Army found a lot of gold in a bank vault. Unlike the Clint Eastwood movie, they were forced to give it back.

Now what ever happened to all that Aztec Gold the Spanish, in 1936-1939, sent to Russia for safekeeping.....It also disappeared.

[DannyTN]

I know Russia is the first place I think of when it comes to keeping gold safe. They’ll make it disappear.

[SunkenCiv]

I'd never heard of that one.

The Spanish pulled a LOT of gold, silver, and gems out of the ground (using slave labor for the most part), such that, when Sir Francis Drake went on his circumnavigation, he took some time out to plunder some Spanish ships.

When he returned to Britain, the value of the booty was sufficient to pay off the entire national debt (which means, QE I's debt), plus a nice fact profit, and in gratitude she gave him £10000. And the Spanish sent hundreds of treasures ships back to Spain.

The Spanish used their ready cash to buy what they needed from foreign sources, and never developed an educated population that could develop the Spanish economy. Lots of palaces, and the servants went home to their own servants.

There's a book about Stalin's demand for specie, it's called "Stalin's Silver", the sub carrying a fortune in silver to The Great Helmsman during WWII went down off Arabia somewhere. Still down there.