Post B6nwaFFFduEOMVrQ0G by azonenberg@ioc.exchange
 (DIR) More posts by azonenberg@ioc.exchange
 (DIR) Post #B6nwUS23BhMOHbvJ5M by mhoye@cosocial.ca
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       I think the undersold point here is that the CIA gets up to shit that they made an in house requisition process for gold bars to pay for, and they get up to enough of that shit and it’s so normal that keeping track of millions of dollars worth of gold bars is not really worth the hassle?https://www.npr.org/2026/05/28/nx-s1-5837308/cia-officer-gold-bars
       
 (DIR) Post #B6nwUSGwILGn1mtCIC by azonenberg@ioc.exchange
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       @mhoye what i'm more curious about is, who *buys* millions of dollars of gold?Like if some guy in a trench coat just handed me $20M in gold I have no idea how I'd turn that into cash without raising a lot of eyebrows.Short of a central bank or industrial scale jewelry manufacturer or something, who is going to buy that? Your average neighborhood "we buy gold" pawnshop certainly isn't going to have $20M lying around. Folks who have legitimate uses for large quantities of gold already have established supply chains and will definitely be asking questions if a stranger walks up offering a huge amount.
       
 (DIR) Post #B6nwaFFFduEOMVrQ0G by azonenberg@ioc.exchange
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       @mhoye sure you might find some drug kingpin or something who just wants to have $1M in gold in his basement to show off to his underlings, but I doubt they would want a huge amount of gold either, because then they'd have the same problem of turning it into something useful
       
 (DIR) Post #B6nxCRCHeYsiR2gU8e by Uair@autistics.life
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       @azonenberg @mhoye This raises more questions than it answers.  How do you go about finding a drug kingpin?  Once you do, how do you make him actually pay you for the gold rather than just take it?I thought this through when the story broke.  I'd learn jewelrymaking and sell hand crafted jewelry on etsy or something.  Self-laundering that kind of money has to be a slow process, but I bet I could live pretty well with minimal work if I had free gold to start with.
       
 (DIR) Post #B6nxVVgHCtCFqLo7zU by azonenberg@ioc.exchange
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       @Uair @mhoye having the deal actually work out is a different story, i'm saying even if you had one on speed dial they probably wouldn't turn $20M of gold into $20M of cash
       
 (DIR) Post #B6o0F8seVh76MHU0uG by lackthereof@beige.party
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       @azonenberg @mhoye Well if I heard correctly on the radio, it was in 1kg bars, which is a much more manageable amount of money to do a single transaction for.  About $150k USD?  And I think the idea is you might not be trading it straight for currency, but using it AS currency for higher value transactions, where a legit person might use check or money order, but physical stacks of $100 bills are just too bulky
       
 (DIR) Post #B6o1WQGhDRklA9X7Fw by azonenberg@ioc.exchange
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       @lackthereof @mhoye yeah but like the other party won't accept it unless they can trade it on further
       
 (DIR) Post #B6o26eqUUkv4nZYPs8 by lackthereof@beige.party
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       @azonenbergI imagine it's not hard to go to, like, some sort of gold trader and sell a single gold bar.  I bet the gold buyer shop at the mall will do it.  But I also bet there's paperwork involved when you sell something worth that much. @mhoye
       
 (DIR) Post #B6o2MuK4idvTQw8lI8 by azonenberg@ioc.exchange
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       @lackthereof @mhoye exactly. I mean it's better than uncut diamonds but it still seems like the kind of thing that would be a royal pain to move
       
 (DIR) Post #B6o2ZweZMiQ2QTwXPk by azonenberg@ioc.exchange
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       @lackthereof @mhoye Reminds me of the time me and my housemates in grad school discussed all going to the bank and taking out a bunch of cash as bricks of $1 bills.Then when the landlord came by to collect the rent, hand him a briefcase with 28 bricks of a hundred singles each.We never did it, but it would have been hilarious (doubly so because said landlord was the former chief of police for the city)
       
 (DIR) Post #B6o6Q3iEfGGfEyCQFM by clew@ecoevo.social
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       So, uh, is this *for* suborning central banks?No idea what price a small nations bank/bank faction would find persuasive. @azonenberg @mhoye