Recently, planes have been crossing the Atlantic Ocean with some pretty surprising cargo.
The flights take off from Europe bound for New York.
They carry the usual passengers, vacationers, business people, and the usual luggage.
But along with all those identical black roller bags, they're carrying something else.
Many, many tons of gold are flying over the Atlantic in the cargo hold of passenger planes.
Gold bars.
Bars.
Yeah, bars, Bars.
Bars of gold.
That's my colleague Joe Wallace.
Would I ever know if gold was on my flight?
No, they would never tell you.
Then you'd be a target.
Right, for some armed robbery.
That's true.
Are there load balancing issues involved?
Excellent question.
The limitation, I think, is financial.
You can generally take up to 5 tons of gold,
which is about half a billion dollars of gold on a flight.