The safest Vault in Spain
The most secure Vault in Spain. No one, in its 77 years of existence, has dared to assault the gold chamber that is located 48 meters underground of the Bank of Spain building. The chances of getting out of it alive are almost zero. The obstacles are not few. In the event of any threat detected through different sensors or cameras, a key would be manually activated that would flood its entire altitude. No possibility of escape. Not even for Ethan Hunt in “Mission: Impossible.”
Two streams that were channeled into a cistern during the construction of the chamber (in the expansion project by architect José Yarnoz between 1929 and 1936) would flood it. These are “Las Pascualas”, which is almost at surface level above La Castellana, and “Oropesa”, an underground that goes down through Alcalá and feeds La Cibeles.
Eiffel shelves
Very few know the route until they are fascinated by the shine of the gold bars that are sheltered in this highly secure place. There, a third of Spain’s gold reserve is stacked on engineer Eiffel’s shelves. The rest are in Fort Knox (USA) and London. The total amounts to 9.1 million troy ounces, equivalent to 281 tons of gold or 12 billion euros. On the shelves of the Spanish gold chamber, 5,400 ingots of standard pure gold are accumulated, five by five. Each ingot weighs 12.5 kilos and is worth between 600,000 and 640,000 euros. In addition, there are another 2,000 irregular ingots. The untouchable Nazi gold is also kept.
To reach the chamber you have to cross some stairs that are located in the roundabout that joins the 1891 building and the 1936 extension of the Bank of Spain, practically in the center of the plot. Sources of all solvency explain the journey to us. You have to go down two basements. Then you reach a room where you come across the first large armored door, weighing 15 tons and rusting steel. One of the curiosities is that twice a year you have to protect it with Vaseline so that it does not rust. Any speck of dust on the door can prevent it from opening.
Different boxes
This first obstacle is opened with two keys and two keys that the key holders have: the bank teller and the auditor. In the past, the governor also had a key, but this figure no longer keeps it and it was cancelled. Passing the battleship there is a pit and two elevators. These elevators go down 36 meters deep.
When you get to the bottom you have to cross a two-meter-long bridge that crosses the moat. When you cross it there is another rectangular armored door, smaller than the first. Another six meters from this, a twin door. They weigh 13.5 tons each. They all open with two keys and two keys. One door never opens without another closing.
Two families underground
The last door, the third, leads to a distributor with the safe deposit boxes, among which is the gold chamber. All the doors were manufactured by York House in the USA. In 1934 their construction was completed. Inside the vault there is a box for the Ministry of Economy, another for the Ministry of Justice, one more for the Ombudsman and other spaces for the Bank of Spain, where it keeps the gold ingots and the bank’s numismatic collection, which It amounts to more than 500,000 coins. In addition, nearly two million coins valued in gold also rest on the shelves.
At 48 meters deep there is also a small corridor, a loophole that runs along the outer surface from the entrance to the exit. It is full of mirrors, placed in such a way that when you look through a point you can see any silhouette. In the event of an intruder, it would not be necessary to tour the entire facility and the alarm could be raised quickly. This space was visited on security patrols by the civil guards who lived underground in two homes until 25 years ago. Now no one lives there anymore. In those apartments they made their lives with their families. Their children went to school every day from these caves. The Armed Institute is not aware of this point, although it does not deny it. This fact is confirmed to the privileged visitors of the gold chamber.
The PSOE sold half of it
There are currently 9.1 million troy ounces in the gold vault. In 2004, the total reserve of this metal amounted to about 17 million troy ounces. In 2005 it ended with 14.7 million; in 2006, with 13.4 million, and in December 2007, with the current reserve. At the time when almost half of the gold reserve was sold, Pedro Solbes was in charge of the Ministry of Economy and Finance.
Gold sales allow the bank’s profits to increase. «Then it was said that they invested in other more profitable assets. It was an eye-catching sales trend. While other emerging countries bought, Spain sold. Buying gold is a form of protection by exchanging currency for this metal, which is never devalued,” explains Marion Mueller, vice president of the Spanish Precious Metals Association. This expert specifies that if the country now has 281 tons of gold, in 1999 it amounted to 523 tons.
Since 2007 the reserve has not been touched. There is currently a joint agreement between twenty European banks which establishes, since 2009, that gold sales are limited in a period of five years (until 2014) to 400 tons and total sales over the period are not They will exceed 2,000.
These are the best kept secrets of the vault, an area of 2,500 square meters of which, with the large walls that separate the boxes, 1,500 remain useful. It is an impassable facility. Not even the bombs of the Civil War could defeat it. It was in this bunker where the families who lived in the Bank building were safely protected from the missiles.
https://www.abc.es/espana/20130422/abci-trampa- bank-espana-201304211030.html
