The Ministry of Defence has been stripped of work providing security for the Royal Mint, with the private contractor G4S due to take over in July. The decision comes just a month after the Royal Mint opened its coin-making facilities in Wales to visitors for the first time in its 1,000-year history. A Royal Mint spokesperson confirmed that a “new private security team of trained guards” would be taking over its security on July 4.
G4S said the contract was for five years with a potential two-year extension. As one of the biggest employers of ex-servicemen and police in both the UK and the US, the security team at the Royal Mint will include ex-military Gurkha personnel, it added. In the US, around one-quarter of G4S’s 57,000 staff are military veterans.
“As a global manufacturer of circulating and commemorative coins, a world-class bullion supplier and the location of the newly opened Royal Mint Experience visitor attraction, the Royal Mint takes the security of its site extremely seriously, and as such our security arrangements are under constant review,” the Royal Mint said.
G4S already holds money on behalf of the Bank of England at its 35 cash centres as well as being one of the biggest deliverers of cash to ATM machines nationwide.
It also guards a 1,500-tonne gold and bullion vault for ISBC Bank, the Chinese bank, in London, as well as transferring gold bullion, precious metals and art worldwide through its logistics arm.
