this post was submitted on 09 Apr 2024
417 points (99.5% liked)

Weird News - Things that make you go 'hmmm'

976 readers
286 users here now

Rules:

  1. News must be from a reliable source. No tabloids or sensationalism, please.

  2. Try to keep it safe for work. Contact a moderator before posting if you have any doubts.

  3. Titles of articles must remain unchanged; however extraneous information like "Watch:" or "Look:" can be removed. Titles with trailing, non-relevant information can also be edited so long as the headline's intent remains intact.

  4. Be nice. If you've got nothing positive to say, don't say it.

Violators will be banned at mod's discretion.

Communities We Like:

-Not the Onion

-And finally...

founded 11 months ago
MODERATORS
lemmyfanadmin
oleorun
417
Smugglers melted and spray painted $10 million in gold to look like machine parts (www.popsci.com)
submitted 8 months ago by oleorun to c/weirdnews
44 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Go to all that work and then get found out by using shitty spray paint.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 12 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Why did they not just electroplate it

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Because gold weighs a ton due to its density, and they're idiots for thinking they could trick anyone weighing or x-raying the parts.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago

Fair, but that's an issue with the concept, not the execution. If they're going to go through all this effort to cast gold into machine parts, why would they use spraypaint?

Also I have no reference but I feel like if you plated this in tungsten you could get past customs. If they ask why its so heavy you could just say it needs to be heavy for a specific usecase so it's made of tungsten, though I admit I have no idea what tungsten plated gold would look like on an xray, or if tungsten electroplating is even possible.