Gold Stolen at Toronto Airport

Observant1

"Police in Canada are investigating a brazen heist of nearly C$20m (US$14.8m) in gold and other 'high value' items at Toronto’s Pearson airport."

"Investigators from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police were also looking into the theft, which is one of the largest in Canadian history. The Greater Toronto Airports Authority, citing the “active police investigation”, declined to comment on the theft."

"Goldmines from northern Ontario often ship bullion through the city’s airport, which handles nearly half of the country’s air cargo."

At least Canada's vast maple syrup stockpile wasn't targeted this time!
Link

Sven

Someone have been watching and planning this for awhile.. Gold bullion is trade all time high, over $2,000 an ounce.

yogibearbull

Some early reports mentioned $104 million worth of gold.
https://www.firstpost.com/world/gold-bars-worth-over-100-million-dollars-stolen-from-canada-airport-12491892.html

Crash

Jump right to 3:00.

msf

For you fourth graders out there:

If I steal $14.8 million ($14,800,000) in gold, and
if gold costs $2,000 per ounce,
how many ounces of gold have I stolen?

There are 16 ounces in a pound. How many pounds of gold is that?
There are 2,000 pounds in a ton. Did I steal more or less than a ton of gold?

For extra credit:
There are approximately 2.2 pounds in a kilogram (kg). How many kilograms of gold did I steal?

hank

I’ve flown in and out of Pearson a few times. It’s the only airport where the security folks made me open up my small carry on bag and take everything out of it. (iPad, medications, checkbook, spare socks & underwear). Then the guy remarked “You travel light.” Now I’m thinking they were so busy “sniffing out” ordinary folks’ personal items that these gold bandits walked right past them.

yogibearbull

Well, early reports had 3,600 pounds valued at $104 million stolen. That looked like a lot to just walkaway with. New reports of only $14 million worth is probably walkable by some big guys, but still cannot just hide in the pockets.

Old_Joe

1) 7400 oz
2) 462.5 lbs
3) Less
4) 210.23 kg

And the price of gold is approximately $70,399.09 per kg, or 63,999.017 Euros, at today's exchange rate.

More importantly, and certainly of greater interest: Where was @rono when this went down ???

orage

7400 (Troy) oz ≈ 237.9 kg

yogibearbull

Be aware of ounces (common measure) and Troy ounces (used for precious metals).

Other Tidbits:
12 Troy Ounces of gold make 1 Troy Pound of gold (unlike the usual 16 Oz of peanuts for 1 Lb of peanuts).
1 Troy Oz of gold has 31.1034768 grams of gold (1 Oz of sugar has 28.350 gm of sugar)
1 Tonne = 1,000 KG = 1,000,000 gms = 32,150.7465686 Troy Oz
1 Tola = 0.375 Troy Oz = 11.6638038 gm (definition varies)
Gold is 19.32 times heavier than water, silver is 10.49 times heavier (specific gravities)
1 cubic meter of gold is 19.32 Tonnes
24 Karat gold is 100% pure; 18 Karat gold is 75% pure (100x18/24 %)

LewisBraham

The crime that caught my eye recently was the heist of two million dimes in Philadelphia worth $200,000. It seems such a comical Philly kind of crime to steal dimes: https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/apr/16/philadelphia-2-million-dimes-stolen
If I were a cop, I’d be searching for someone who purchased a lot of those paper coin rolls recently. I wonder which of the ten thieves has to count and roll them? Also, how sore are their arms from carrying two million dimes? The upside and brilliance: Dimes are such small currency they’re virtually untraceable.

msf

yogibearbull said:

Be aware of ounces (common measure) and Troy ounces (used for precious metals).

Other Tidbits:
...
Gold is 19.32 times heavier than water, silver is 10.49 times heavier (specific gravities)

Good point.

As to which is heavier, gold or water, I refer you to an old riddle: Which weighs more, a pound of feathers or a pound of lead?

Density is different from weight, though things are not always as they appear:

"Which weighs more--a pound of lead or a pound of feathers?" The seemingly naive answer to the familiar riddle is the pound of lead. The correct answer, of course, is that they weigh the same amount. We investigated whether the naive answer to the riddle might have a basis in perception. When blindfolded participants hefted a pound of lead and a pound of feathers each contained in boxes of identical size, shape, and mass, they reported that the box containing the pound of lead felt heavier at a level above chance.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18265850/

hank

Old_Joe said:

Where was @rono when this went down ???

Certainly adds new meaning to his post a few days before the heist: “Precious metals are breaking out …”

orage

In the lead/feathers test, I bet people are quite sensitive to the inertia (both linear and angular) when lifting the two supposedly identical boxes and the experimenters neglected this.

Old_Joe

"Certainly adds new meaning to his post a few days before the heist: “Precious metals are breaking out …”

You guys know that I never use "LOL"... well, LOL !!!

WABAC

I wonder if the thieves got agents to handle book, game, and movie rights before, or after, the heist.

Crash

Toronto. Idiot with the badge gave me a grilling, entering Canada. Had to transfer, coming in from Connecticut. I barely made it to my connection, onward to Calgary. I'd say @hank is correct.

Mark

@hank - good one!

@msf - Yup, mass distribution messes with one's perception. STUDY

msf

orage said:

In the lead/feathers test, I bet people are quite sensitive to the inertia (both linear and angular) when lifting the two supposedly identical boxes and the experimenters neglected this.

Linear inertia is the resistance of a body or collection of bodies to altering its linear motion. That is, linear inertia is mass. It doesn't matter whether a box is filled with a single lump of lead or a collection of many feathers. So long as the total mass of each box is the same the linear inertia of the two boxes is the same.

Angular (rotational) inertia, more commonly called moment of inertia (which you mentioned in the pre-edit version of your post), plays the same role in rotational motion. But unlike linear inertia, angular inertia depends on the location of the individual bodies constituting the total mass. It is calculated as the sum of each mass times the square of its distance from an axis of rotation. It's that second moment (squaring) that makes the difference.

Think about the two boxes. Assume that the feathers are uniformly distributed in one box and that the lead mass is held in position at the center of the other box. Further, assume that the axis of rotation we are considering is through the center of the box.

Then the angular inertia (moment of inertia) is greater for the box with feathers. Equivalently, the box with lead has lower angular inertia.

You are suggesting that the box with lower angular intertia (easier to rotate, i.e. needing less torque to achieve the same rotation) will feel heavier. That strikes me as counterintuitive. Even if the lifters were rotating the boxes.

I bet ... the experimenters neglected this

Weight illusions--where one object feels heavier than an identically weighted counterpart--have been the focus of many recent scientific investigations. The most famous of these illusions is the 'size-weight illusion', where a small object feels heavier than an identically weighted, but otherwise similar-looking, larger object. There are, however, a variety of similar illusions which can be induced by varying other stimulus properties, such as surface material, temperature, colour, and even shape. Despite well over 100 years of research, there is little consensus about the mechanisms underpinning these illusions.

Getting a grip on heaviness perception: a review of weight illusions and their probable causes, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24691760/ (cited on the originally linked page)

I'll take that bet

msf

@Mark - thanks for the brief paper.

Next thing you'll be telling me is that you found proof that if you drop a pound of feathers and a pound of lead from the top of the Empire State Building, the feathers fall more slowly. Heck, you might even find something saying that the feathers never hit the ground at all, they just get carried away by the wind.