LAST MINUTE · RESERVATION CONTROL

🥇🔍 The AGN admits that it could not verify the destination of the Argentine gold sent abroad

The external watchdog confirmed that it did not have face-to-face access to the bullion transferred in 2024, while the BCRA and the opposition are crossing paths over their real location: Switzerland or London?

The Auditor General of the Nation (AGN) set off alarms by confirming that, so far, it has not been able to verify in person the destination and status of the gold bars that the Central Bank of the Argentine Republic (BCRA) sent abroad in 2024. The external control body of the public sector maintains that the restrictions imposed by the monetary entity itself prevented it from gathering sufficient evidence to close the review, in open contradiction with the statements of the president of the BCRA, Santiago Bausili, who had assured the Senate that the operations already had audits without observations.

The conflict dates back to mid-2024, when the Central Bank made four transfers of bullion abroad: on June 18, July 2, July 31 and August 13. According to official documentation released by the AGN, 250 bars were transferred in each of these shipments, for an estimated total of 13 tons of gold, a relevant portion of the issuing agency's reserves.

The operation remained under reserve for almost two years, until Bausili himself confirmed its existence on September 9, 2026 before the Senate Budget and Finance Committee, within the framework of the debate on the reform of the BCRA's Organic Charter. The official explained that the decision responded to a market opportunity: part of the Argentine bullion, smelted between the 1960s and 1990s, had less commercial acceptance due to their age, and a strong international demand for gold made it possible to reduce the cost of exchanging them for higher quality pieces.

Bausili said that the bullion was deposited in an account linked to the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), an organization that functions as a "bank of central banks" based in Basel, Switzerland. The official also defended the confidentiality of the operation, arguing that disclosing in real time the financial positions of the Central Bank could facilitate market maneuvers against the interests of the country.

Asked by Senator Juliana Di Tullio about the status of that placement, the head of the BCRA was categorical: the information is available, it is audited and the audit reports are there, he remarked to the legislators. That statement is precisely the one that the AGN came out to contradict days later.

The controversy escalated when Di Tullio herself questioned the geographical accuracy of the official explanation. According to the legislator, although the bars are registered under a BIS account, their real physical custody would be in the Bank of England, in London, and they would never have passed through Basel. Bausili lied to the Senate, the gold is in London, in the Bank of England, the senator said in dialogue with Infobae, in an accusation that the Government rejected.

🇨🇭  BCRA version: the bullion is deposited in an account of the BIS, based in Switzerland.

🇬🇧  Opposition's version: the physical custody would be at the Bank of England, in London.

📄  Common point: Exact traceability – ownership versus physical location – has not yet been certified by an independent watchdog.

According to the reconstruction published by Ambito, when the AGN first requested the documentation to audit the four transfers of 2024, the Central Bank did not explicitly refuse, but neither did it deliver the minutes, opinions and other actions necessary to move forward. The only concrete proposal that the audit team received was to approach and review the information directly from the entity's computers, without the possibility of taking backup copies.

Added to this was a striking response from the BCRA itself to one of the requests for information: the contracts for the placement of gold bars with the BIS or another foreign depository do not exist to date and there were none as of December 31, 2024, according to the official documentation cited by the audit. In addition, on December 22, 2025, the Federal Administrative Court had ordered the Central Bank to respond to requests for access to public information on the transfer of the gold, a court order that, according to different media, was not complied with in a timely manner.

The result, according to the AGN itself, is that the existence of an audit project within its work plan does not amount to a verification already completed: the review on the traceability of gold reserves is still open and does not allow, for the time being, to officially confirm either the location or the physical condition of the bullion.

The head of the AGN, Juan Manuel Olmos, deepened the criticism in public statements: the president of the BCRA has not been clear about Argentine gold abroad, he said, and questioned that the monetary entity did not clarify precisely what happened with the bullion between June 2025 and May 2026. The Central Bank, meanwhile, remarked that the audit corresponding to the 2024 fiscal year was closed, and that the delay corresponds to the 2025 period, whose documentation would have arrived late to the auditors.

The controversy led to a parliamentary offensive: blocs of senators from the Justicialist Party presented a bill to urgently summon Bausili before Congress, with the aim of explaining with supporting documentation the complete traceability of the 13 tons transferred. At the same time, the debate over the reform of the BCRA's Organic Charter – which already has half the approval of Deputies – was crossed by the dispute over transparency in the management of reserves.

Beyond the immediate political dispute, the episode brings to the fore a fundamental discussion: the real capacity of control bodies – such as the AGN – to independently oversee the management of strategic assets of the State, particularly when the audited entity invokes reasons of market confidentiality to restrict access to information. Gold is, historically, one of the most sensitive reserve assets of any central bank, and its traceability is usually considered a minimum standard of institutional transparency in any democracy.

While the government insists that there are no irregularities and that the operation responded to a reasonable financial logic, the lack of a conclusive external verification leaves open a question that, for now, no agency could answer with documentary certainty: where exactly are the 13 tons of Argentine gold that left the country in 2024.

Due to access policies to external networks of this document generation environment, the photographs could not be embedded as a binary file within this Word. Listed below are verified absolute links —verified as accessible at the time of this writing— with real photographs and free consultation on the subject:

📷  Historic façade of the Central Bank (BCRA), Buenos Aires: https://www.bcra.gob.ar/noticias/la-fachada-de-la-primera-sede-del-bcra-fue-restaurada-y-puesta-en-valor/  — Official note from the BCRA on the restoration of its headquarters at 275 San Martín Street

📷  Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Headquarters, Basel, Switzerland: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_for_International_Settlements  — Encyclopedic article with image of the BIS tower in Basel

📷  Bank of England, London: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_of_England  — Encyclopaedic article with photograph of the façade of the Bank of England

Summary of the positioning techniques applied to this piece, designed for a news item in development published in 2026, with a focus on traditional search engines, Google Discover and generative search engines (AI):

🔗  Ámbito — AGN denies Santiago Bausili: https://www.ambito.com/politica/envios-oro-al-exterior-la-agn-desmiente-santiago-bausili-n6320626

🔗  Profile — The AGN has not yet audited the reserves: https://www.perfil.com/noticias/politica/oro-del-bcra-la-agn-todavia-no-audito-las-reservas-y-contradijo-la-version-que-dio-bausili-en-el-senado.phtml

🔗  Infobae — Di Tullio: "the gold is in London": https://www.infobae.com/politica/2026/09/10/juliana-di-tullio-bausili-le-mintio-al-senado-el-oro-del-banco-central-esta-en-londres/

🔗  La Nación — Bausili revealed where the gold is: https://www.lanacion.com.ar/economia/santiago-bausili-revelo-donde-esta-parte-del-oro-del-banco-central-se-deposito-en-suiza-nid09092026/

🔗  First — AGN crossed to Bausili: https://primereando.com.ar/index.php/2026/09/14/desde-la-auditoria-general-de-la-nacion-cruzaron-a-bausilli-no-ha-sido-claro-respecto-al-oro-argentino-en-el-exterior/126647/

🔗  Scope — The PJ asks Bausili to go to Congress: https://www.ambito.com/politica/el-pj-pide-que-bausili-vaya-al-congreso-dar-explicaciones-el-oro-del-banco-central-n6322171

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