Heathrow Gold Heist

You'll have heard the news about this attempted robbery - 7 men in a transit van ram-raid a warehouse in Heathrow airport, aiming to steal £40m in gold bullion, and a similar sum in cash. Police foil the raid. Papers, photos, nap-snap, grin-grin, say no more.

Except over here at Galmarley HQ we're finding it a bit suspicious. You see, gold is bloody heavy. $40m quid's worth at current prices is about 5 tonnes. So we're supposed to believe that seven men and 5 tonnes of gold are planning to get away in a vehicle with a max load weight of up to 1.5 tonnes. It's just not going to happen.

I smell a rat. Are we supposed to believe they were just dumb crooks? What else was going on in the news yesterday? Which dead donkeys were dropped to make way for this incredible story...

Anyone? Anyone?

Bueller?

I would be difficult to get a Transit in the back of a Bedford Val as well...

Submitted by JD (not verified) on Wed, 2004-05-19 09:56.

'Fraid not Jim - bear in mind that Mr Fusion only powers the wormhole generator and the CD player - the engine still runs on regular gasoline.

Submitted by Kris (not verified) on Wed, 2004-05-19 07:09.

That's terrible, Kris. Has wormhole technology really not advanced that much yet?

Submitted by James Casey (not verified) on Tue, 2004-05-18 18:42.

"...in which case it would probably go into instant collapse, sucking the whole of Heathrow airport into oblivion."

Why is this necessarily a bad thing?

Submitted by Brian (not verified) on Tue, 2004-05-18 17:55.

@jd - Point taken, but the fact that it was a ram-raid implies they were aiming for a quick getaway. Still suspicious in my book.

@james - An even better point, but again, flawed. Even using a Mr Fusion as your power source a transit van-sized stargate would only be able to access a very small universe. Most likely 5 tonnes of gold would make up over 90% of the mass of said dimension, in which case it would probably go into instant collapse, sucking the whole of Heathrow airport into oblivion. In which case there wouldn't have been many pictures.

Case: Still Open.

Submitted by Kris (not verified) on Tue, 2004-05-18 17:48.

If you created a portal to a (limited size in order to minimise energy use) manufactured different dimension, you could store any amount of gold (according to the physical limitations you've set on the dimension when creating it) within said dimension and would only need to store the equipment required to project the portal (say, a miniature Stargate) within the van.

Submitted by James Casey (not verified) on Tue, 2004-05-18 14:54.

You're wrong in your assumption on the max payload of a Transit. The biggest one you can buy will take 3.5 tonnes. If you were to block the rear suspension you could conceivably get 5 tonnes in it without it looking too suspicious. Wouldn't exactly move that quickly though...

Submitted by JD (not verified) on Tue, 2004-05-18 14:46.

The police didn't find the fleet of specially modified mini's - That was the real plan....

If only they listened and just blown the bloody doors off...

Submitted by Andy (not verified) on Tue, 2004-05-18 14:29.

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