agree with one minor quibble:
> load up planes and physically ship gold.
they would not load planes, they’d load ships, because it’s much cheaper.
> load up planes and physically ship gold.
they would not load planes, they’d load ships, because it’s much cheaper.
“In focussing almost exclusively on gold bars, jewellery, and high-grade recycled gold (over 40% purity), all of which generally travel by air, analysts have tended to disregard the maritime space as a significant arena for illicit gold flows (LBMA, 2022[9]).”
https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/illicit-flows-of-gold-c...
The Hong Kong gold vault stores at the airport, not the harbour:
“ Half of the world’s population, including those of China and India, lives and can be reached within five hours if the metal is loaded on a plane and sent from the Hong Kong airport”
https://www.lbma.org.uk/alchemist/issue-67/gold-vault-at-the...
This makes it sound like emergency delivery of gold is important. “Quick, we need to get 20 tons of gold to Nepal, stat! Go go go go go!”
I can tell you from first hand experience that moving high value items isn't as exciting as you'd think.
ULDs are the standardized shipping containers of the sky. You can rent ones that have an inner armored layer and tamper evident seals. They fly as commercial cargo, usually on the flag carrier airline if its a government load. No special rituals or armed guards. Shipments are broken up so the loss of a single aircraft is at most $5 or $10 million.
There are some highly specialized aircraft that transport full loads but they tend to be closer to the supply side, moving bulk gold or diamonds from remote mines for processing.
Cash is the interesting exception (most non-US currency is produced by commercial printers) where a country will send its military to go pick up one big shipment.