Bitcoin Forum

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A year or two ago I was in contact (via email) a fellow fan of gold.  This guy has gone on to become a whacko/weirdo, and has alienated some people in the "Physical Gold Advocates" ("PGA") community.  

He told me that he knew a way to get gold past the TSA (etc.) and on to an airplane flight (ah, think taking gold to another country).  I asked him how much how he wanted if he would tell me, but gave me a runaround and then said $1000!

I have thought and thought and thought, but I have yet to come up with such a technique.  Remember, gold will show up on the TSA X-ray machines.

So, I put this question out to any and all of you:

How do I get gold onto the plane?

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FYI, the most prominent "PGA" is FOFOA:

fofoa.blogspot.com (http://fofoa.blogspot.com)   <=== Highly recommended!  LONG posts, but most excellent, and he has a unique take on gold.

FOFOA is very respected, and is NOT the weirdo whom I was emailing some time ago.

For the purpose of smuggling gold into India I presume?

Shh, but the big risk with that is upon arrival in INDIA...  :)

I am more interested in getting it ONTO the plane without detection.  Bringing it into another country is a separate problem.

You take one of those male birthcontrole rubber things and put one unit in it, then eat it. When you arrive at your destination, you go po po and the you have it! wooops wrong topic  ???
In all honesty, i don't know. Maybe try to make a lady friend who works as a steward to take it for you?

Perhaps do this and say it's a present for the wife ;D

Forgive me as I have not had need to take gold out of the country.  But why can't you take gold onto planes and what would be the reasoning for taking it out of the country?

Again no judgement or anything, I really have no idea why you can't take gold out of the country.

I believe the op's theoretical situation is getting gold on to a plane from a country with no restrictions so it does not have to be declared at the arrival destination.  Probably pay off some luggage handlers to bypass customs in the country with restrictions i.e India

I suppose it depends how much gold you are taking about.  For small quantities a few gold sovereigns mixed in with loose change would probably go undetected.  If you are talking kg bars it would be a lot harder.

Second for why it's not legal in the first place? And couldn't you just put it in something that already would show up anyway, like a computer?

Some countries do not allow the import or export of gold or charge heavy taxes.

There are no laws against transporting gold out of the U.S., but there are reporting requirements. Read this: http://www.financialsense.com/contributors/mark-nestmann/understand-rules-before-you-transport-precious-metals-overseas-part-i

That guy was probably just trying to earn some money of you and would have been better of asking for a much lower amount for his "wisdom".

Anyway, large amounts of golds will never be able to be transported on a plane due to it's weight.

The guy was probably thinking about smaller quantities, which you could do by making some crap jewelry and just wear it (full gold bracelet maybe? could be quite the amount of gold).

Did not think it would be that big of an issue. It has to be much easier to hide however than other 'illegal' things. No scene, can be turned into any shape/size, ect..

Bake some ounces into the bottom of some cupcakes and mail them to yourself there? :D VAT claim - $8.50  8)

Even carrying anywhere close to 6 ounces of gold would be enough to tip off TSA agents and get you filing paperwork (In the best case) because you technically are not allowed to leave the USA with over $10,000 in value. This could be problematic if you are transferring large sums in Precious Metals, but for an ounce or two it should be fine. Just add a GoPro to catch anyone stealing.

Melt it into the shape of metal barbell weights then paint it and package it up with exercise gear.

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Let's say 20 ounces.  Just theoretically.  That makes up a plastic tube of Gold Eagles (a Mint tube), and would weigh less than 2 lbs, but still is about 3" * 1.5" * 1.5" tube measurement.

The stewardess idea seems the best so far, but then you would have to trust her...  

Turning them into exercise weights (painted black) would seem to be a pain in the butt, and you would then have to assay your Au upon arrival "over there".  Still, that might work...

But, the weirdo/whacko I mentioned said there was a great way to get gold onto the plane, and I don't think he meant a private jet (a great idea if you are VERY RICH).

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Yes, you can take ANY amount of gold (or even currency) out of the USA freely as odolvlobo mentioned.  But, you do have to report it if total value of what you are taking is over $10,000.

That would attract the attention of TSA (probably Customs and other cops, who might confiscate it even though legal: "Asset Forfeiture") as well as fellow passengers, who might rat you out upon arrival.  Can't be too careful.

Even better, hollow out some weights and fill them with the poured gold. 8)

It depends how much you have.

If you have alot, you could consider melting it down and alloying it with another metal to make it less detectable. Then you could use it as something innocuous. At the destination it's a simple procedure to de-alloy (that's not a technical term) the metal and get back to pure gold and you don't lose any of the original.

Of course this is only worth it if you have alot of gold since the cost of melting is high (it requires special facilities).

Otherwise you can transport it by vehicle or even through the mail if you're careful. There are many ways.

Gold is actually relatively easy to disguise and there is a whole black market that exists around resmelting gold. If you're interested take a look at what happened to the Brinksmat gold in the uk in the 1980s.

Why would anyone have to jump through such incredibly uncomfortable hoops just to transport $1000 worth of gold.  OP, you did say $1000, right?  That's one ounce.  I don't think you have to do anything weird to do this, but I don't know your country's laws.  Come to think of it, I don't know my country's laws either but it's not illegal to own gold, I know that, and I don't think that if I had a gold coin in my pocket anyone at the airport would give me crap about it.  You could always ship it.

If it's not to many, turn it into jewelry and wear it going to the airport  ;D
I don't think they will question anyone for wearing to much bling bling but if it's a lot like in gold bullion.
Much better if you just declare it so if anything bad happens it's covered by the plane owner.

well it is known that moving gold is not very convenient, and troublesome, you can magical teleport it where you need it, like you can with electronic payment

it's one of the reason why i dismissed it completely

Interesting thought, I never knew that it was illegal to take gold onto an airplane. Best thing you can do in this situation is to melt the gold into jewelry and take it on the plane that way. If it's a huge amount, i'm sure you could afford a couple of trips back and forward.

It is not illegal per se, but it is illegal to import ot in some countries as well as that you have to declare large sums of cash or goods that you import.

Obviously OP is asking for a way that does not involve reporting the gold.

Why would you want to do that? Are you trying to get your gold stolen? Are you trying to knock out your back?

I don't think you can avoid this without declaring it. Seems like a difficult thing to do.

Why would you want to do this in the first place?

Well is better to not do that is not safe to just have a gold in the plane.
I doubt that the security won't notice about the gold.

Coat the gold with zinc or iron, and label it "Tungsten".

Tungsten has about the same density as gold, but costs about USD23/kg.

Scammers have sometimes tried to fill gold bars with tungsten since the adulterated bar would pass a water displacement test. 

Right... Then when they ask you about the metals, you just say you're bringing the tungsten as a gift for a friend's kids. Kids love tungsten, dont you know!?

I like coincube's idea. For instance melt some gold and in form it to 5 or 10 pounds kettlebells.Spray it with some black paint and done.
Beside that put 2 light, real dumbbell weights plust bar.If you got asked say you're a sports junky. :D

Why not pay taxes should not be that much for $1000

He is not talking about $1000 gold.

He stated in the OP a guy on a forum tried to charge him $1000 for the info on how to smuggle gold on to plane, so I assume its gold worth substantially more than $1000.

Why would you not report it? Are there any benefits from this? Taxes or anything? I've only owned gold in jewelry so I have no clue has how this works out.

Well have have a laptop and cover it with gold in the laptop.
Don't do a handbag just when you check do just in the plane.
I know they will control it, but I doubt that they want to open it.

Melt and cast it into an everyday object? Make belt buckles, lighters, pens etc.

have your teeth removed and get a full set of these :

https://bedloo.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/bedloo/left_item_image/57322/large_image.jpg

Followed by a tasteful gold shirt and some discreet jewellery :

http://randommization.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/gold-shirt-man.jpg

I think that will hurt a lot if you remove your teeth and it cost a lot to just have a gold in your teeth.
After that I think that won't be worth it after all. We will see if some people are stupid to do that.

The question is, why would anyone do this if you can just sell your gold for Bitcoin and easily move your Bitcoins wherever you need them to be? It's the person's problem if they don't understand gold is really bad compared to Bitcoin when it comes to moving it among other things.

Looks like you don’t understand the situation.

You buy gold in a country with no restrictions with a low premium over spot price.

You smuggle that gold in to a country that does have restrictions e.g India.

You sell your low premium gold as high premium gold and make a big profit.

This is not just about moving funds held as gold from country A to country B.

As I remember from a movie, mixed in a box of car parts  ;D

Melt in and make balls if you have small ammounts, and say they are IDK, marbles. Or if you have big ammounts, make a dumbell:D

What does this have to do with Bitcoin again? Do we assume that people dealing in bitcoins, knows how to smuggle gold? In any way.. in the days before 911.. some people

attached "Gold" Kruger coins to the back of their watches and they smuggled it in that way. Now you have to remove all metal objects before you go through these

scanners, and they scan your items... so there are virtually no way to get past them.  ::)

I'm not so sure.  ???
What scanner could discern a solid Iron pen form a solid gold pen? They would both be visible as a silhouette, but the scanner operator could not tell what the object is made of. Just don't melt it into the shape of a pistol. lol

I presume different metals would have a different signature under X-ray?

As gold is super dense it would probably show blacker than other metals.

Have you ever played with metal detectors? They have a feature called "discrimination". You can actually make it more or less sensitive to certain metals.

Yep, that's my understanding as well.  The gold would "glow" more (or be blacker) than anything else the TSA guys see that day.

Pretty hard puzzle, eh?  Like I wrote at the O/P, I have thought and thought without arriving at a good procedure.

How do you get the gold onto the plane?

Let's say 20 oz, a real amount.  After all, I have brought about 1.25 oz in small coins w/ no problem, no detection in an old-fashioned coin-purse thing (like you see for sale at tourist traps).

I see what you guys are saying and I do have a metal detector. It makes sense that a discriminator could find gold. However I'm not sure that those TSA machines are able to do this. When I try peeking at the TSA screen (we all do this I assume) I see only the shapes of metal objects. Something that would catch a handgun but could not tell you what kind of metal the gun was made of. I don't really know and I would not want to find out.

I like the coin purse Idea. Maybe you could put a shot of copper paint on the coins first? Then a little acetone to clean them up.   

I take comfort in the fact that you cant think of a way to smuggle gold on to plane.

If you could smuggle large amounts of gold undetected that means you could just as easily smuggle a gun or bomb onboard and thats in no one's best interest :)

The days of travelling with a suitcase (or anus) full of gold are over, I think this is where cryptos really shine in that it is not so easy for them to be pinned to you or your digital strawman if you're smart about it.

There isn't one single solution. It all depends on quantity and destination.

Some people have suggested to melt the metal, but I advise not to do that, because it would make gold much more difficult to sell, and it would only sell at a discount. If you want to sell full price, be it a coin or a bar, there must be the name of the issuer on it. If it's a large bar, there shall be a serial number, too.

Make friends with a cobbler and have him make you some steel gold toed work boots.

That's an interesting point.  Maybe the time has come for this thread's comments to end.  Maybe there is no good way to get the gold onto the plane.

I do see your point markj113.

I suppose the best solution we could hope for is gold merchants "over there" who would take Bitcoin...

Well shit, I honestly didn't know that this was a legit problem people face when trying to travel with gold (didn't even think about it honestly...). But this goes to show you how cryptocurrencies are insanely revolutionary in itself though. Digital "gold" that can be transferred anywhere in the world to anyone, as a form of "currency" for means of conducting business.  from the article:


So no need to physically move actual gold around and instead transfer digital gold? Count me in.  The problem lies that we are still tied to the monetary system instead of having bitcoin and other cryptos backed by gold instead... now that would be a logically fit way to run a somewhat ok economy in my mind.

Use your own private jet.