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I've been wondering why this doesn't happen more often now that the crypto game has figured out international payments.

The smarmy answer would be "because it's working".

Probably because crypto is only useful insofar as it can be converted into useful fiat currencies, which means that it can be tracked.

Tons of bullion exchanges will allow you to buy precious metals with cryptocoin. How trackable is it if someone uses a new wallet for each transaction, and has their gold bars shipped to model homes and abandoned property within ~25-50 miles of their location?

If you're speaking in absolutes, you're not using your imagination!

I can think of tons of schemes to anonymously extract real world spending power from crypto coins..

None of those are particularly expedient, but you have a point.

Crypto, the not-so-fast bullion-based international payment system. Perhaps the perpetrators might have better luck sending each other USD notes by mail instead.

Well, by doing that you go from maybe breaking an NDA to mail fraud, but w/e.

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