$625K in gold disappears off AA flight in MIA
 

A shipment of gold valued at $625,000 vanished in a suspected heist after arriving in Miami on an American Airlines flight, authorities announced Thursday.

A police report says the gold, which arrived in a box, was brought on the flight from Guayaquil, Ecuador to the Miami International Airport early Tuesday, WSVN reports.

The plane's cargo was unloaded by five crew members, but the box containing the gold disappeared after apparently being loaded onto a motorized luggage cart or tug, the report said.

The cart was found in front of a gate of the same terminal were the flight from Ecuador was unloaded, about an hour after workers emptied the cargo hold, but without the box containing the gold.

The police incident report did not say who owned the gold or what its final destination was and an American Airlines security official at the airport declined to comment to Reuters on the case, saying only that it was being investigated by the FBI.

"The FBI is aware of the situation," FBI spokesman Michael Leverock told Reuters in an email.

Miami International serves as a major trans-shipment point for large quantities of gold produced in South America and exported primarily to Switzerland for refining.

The city has seen the trans-shipment of gold rise sharply in recent years as investors have turned to gold and its price has risen.

Gold is Miami's No. 1 import valued at almost $8 billion last year, mostly from Mexico and Colombia, and almost all destined for Switzerland, according to World City, a Miami-based publication that tracks trade data.

Warning - public math
 

That's about 40 pounds. My initial thought was: wow, how did they lug all that gold without getting caught.

Let's say gold is $1000/oz. 625,000/1000 = 625 oz

625/16 oz per pound = 39 pounds.

Google says a bar of gold weighs 27 lbs. So it's roughly the size of 1.5 bars of gold.

Seriously, 40 lbs??
My 2 week carry-on weighs that much.
It would have been easy to put it in a backpack or something and just walk out.

Interesting. There are usually guards that travel with the shipment and supervise it's loading/unloading. Sounds like an inside job.

I'm sure the gold was loaded on the flight to JFK

I wondered why Tom Horton was seen throwing bags on that flight

That was mine. I bought it from a Ecuadorian business man who was lucky enough to find my e-mail address. He was unable to bring in the gold without my help financially. Now this happens!

Not surprised that it happened down in MIA. Lots of things down there have been known to grow legs and walk away.

I know of a flight at a certain airline recently that had 35,000 lbs of gold on it.

Do the math on that one.....

Mean while, on a beach somewhere the Captain is enjoying an early retirement.