£2 million in gold found inside £30,000 Russian tank in Britain

In 2017, British tank collector Nick Mead bought a Russian T54 69 tank for £30,000 and found a hidden stash of gold inside. Mead and mechanic Todd Chamberlain prised open a diesel fuel compartment while checking for live ammunition. Instead, they uncovered several gold ingots weighing up to 5kg each. Chamberlain estimated the haul at about £2m, or roughly £2.69m in today’s money. He told the Sun, “We didn’t know what to do, so we called the police.” Police seized the bars and issued a receipt. Mead had acquired the tank through an exchange after spotting it advertised on eBay, trading an army lorry and an Abbot self propelled gun. The pair believe the gold was looted during the 1990s Gulf War in Kuwait and hidden by Iraqi forces. They think thieves cut into a fuel tank to stash the bars before the vehicle reached Britain. Mead later said that even without the gold he was happy to keep the tank. For £30,000, it turned out to be the most surprising storage unit in the UK.