4 Pounds - Elizabeth II Medusa

The British Indian Ocean Territory — consisting almost entirely of the Chagos Archipelago — has no permanent civilian population and no functioning local economy, making it one of the more transparent fictions in modern numismatics: coins are struck solely for collector revenue, with the issuing "territory" existing primarily as a joint UK-US military installation. Diego Garcia, the main atoll, has housed a strategic US air and naval base since the early 1970s, its indigenous Chagossian population having been forcibly removed between 1968 and 1973 — a displacement British courts have repeatedly ruled unlawful.

The Medusa issue belongs to a broader bullion and collector series capitalizing on mythology themes across multiple two-ounce formats in this period.