Go to all that work and then get found out by using shitty spray paint.
Now that’s good. I wonder how they got caught.
…technicians removed the motor casing and found a rotor “wrapped in a cord wheel which was tied to tape.”
“It was not similar to a normal motor,” he added.
After examining the rotor, authorities found traces of glue at both ends of the machinery part. Using a hammer, they then tapped the part and “noticed unevenness,” indicating the metal was far more malleable than it should have been. Scraping away at an outer layer of silver paint showed flecks of gold.
Yeah somebody snitched. Airport security isn’t going to disassemble an air compressor and start hitting things with a hammer.
You haven’t seen how they’ve inspected my guitar and a shitload of imported things over the years lol
You’d think the first clue would be that gold is 2.5x heavier by volume than steel and is 7x heavier than aluminum.
I did the math lower down:
Probably don’t notice when you’re using a forklift.
My math says that’s 133 kg of gold. Not all that much. If you replaced the metal volume, the additional weight is approx 81 kg.
They found $5 million in gold, how weird.
Reading the article, the paint was the last thing they tested after all of the other indicators. Not sure how a more expensive/higher quality of paint would have made any difference at that point.
They even put the parts back in the original air compressor. Hilarious.
This is the first time I hear about such a case. Imagine how many times it actually did work in the last decades. More effort and this would have gone through like the others.
Yeah, customs doesn’t inspect every single item going though. Wonder is they considered just labeling it as lead bar and spray painting, although that would rely on regular shipments of lead bar going from HK to JP and inspectors not looking too closely as lead bar shipments.