The Sun: Tank collector shocked to find £2million gold bullion hidden in the fuel compartment of his £30,000 vehicle

Tank fanatic Nick Mead, 55, believes the gold bars were looted by Iraqi soldiers in Kuwait during the Gulf War.

A TANK fanatic got a new model in a £30,000 trade-in — and found more than £2million of gold bullion hidden in the fuel tank.

Nick Mead, 55, discovered the five gold bars in the Russian T54/69 while restoring it to add to his collection of 150 military vehicles.

He and mechanic Todd Chamberlain were filming themselves prising open the diesel tank in case they found munitions and needed to show it to bomb disposal crews.

Instead, they pulled out the bars, weighing up to 12lb — 5kg — apiece.

Todd, 50, said a quick calculation suggested they were worth in excess of £2million.



He added: “We didn’t know what to do. You can’t exactly take five gold bullion bars down to Cash Converters without questions being asked, so we called the police.”

Nick runs Tanks-a-Lot, giving petrolheads the chance to drive any of his tanks on his farm in Helmdon, Northants.



He traded in an Army lorry and an Abbot self-propelled gun for the T54/69 in a deal worth about £30,000 after seeing it advertised on eBay.

Todd and Nick had already found machine gun ammunition while stripping down the tank and were worried they would find guns.