If you image search "gold bar" you'll find a lot of images other than the stereotypical large "Good Delivery" (400 troy oz ~12.4 kilos, Wikipedia has more details on the Good Delivery specifications). Apparently 1000g bars ("Kilobars") are common for trading, but there are images of "Credit Suisse" 100g bars that turn up as well.
Right, though given 342 "bars" are mentioned, market price of gold is known, and that in sum the bars were worth $2 million USD - it's possible to try to get a feel for if the weight and worth of gold "adds" up in logically.
See my response to a comment on the same level as your comment for my attempt to look at the numbers.
I have one-kilo as being 35.27-ounces - and an ounce of gold costing roughly $1000 USD. If true, 30 million worth of gold in one-kilo bars would be 850 bars; meaning a lot appear to be missing.
Also, 342 one-kilo bars at $1000 USD an once appears to be worth $1.2 million, not $2 million.
Possible math/logic is flawed, or I'm missing something, but often found people say numbers that if hashed out don't add up.
Could be 342 bars of different weights... you can buy a 1 gram bar for example... possibly can buy bars of >1kg too. I know I would do it this way to make later trading easier.
It "could" be a sign of factually conflicts, a lack of fact checking, etc.
Just pointing it out, maybe the author will add some clarification; since I assume the did fact checking based on their mentioning that the did on sources, evidence, etc.
Plus them storing them in bags and carrying them so much. I can't recall if the gold bars can come in more convenient sizes and weights vs standard ones that are heavy. This was also a counterpoint in arguments against Book of Mormon discovery given calculations showed it was over 1,000lbs. Truly a miracle to get that sucker from point A to point B.
Summary: even if it were a solid block of pure gold, it would only weigh ~200 lbs. However, there's no strong historical evidence that it was pure gold, only golden in color. A plausible golden-colored alloy would end up at around ~60 lbs, which is consistent with historical claims about its weight.
Oops, you got me: another memory failure. Thanks for the catch. Yeah, a guy with a limp outrunning or fighting attackers carrying a book that weighs 200lbs. The 60lbs part is his and apologists "alloy" BS that's rejected by the book itself in Mosiah 8:9 where it says the plates are pure gold. So, it looks like a stretch unless the book is wrong.
My goal isn't to "get you"; I just don't want incorrect information passed off as truth. You clearly think the Book of Mormon is bogus. That's fine, but please use better researched arguments against it.
Anyway, I'm going to drop this thread here, since a post about Paul Le Roux if the wrong place to have this discussion.
It's possible the original source was bad on that one. I'll drop it for now until I revisit the evidence. Or dfop it entirely as it wasn't a critical claim to begin with.
Elsewhere the article described him buying up "1-kilogram" bars. I don't know where you would get such a thing (I'm not in the gold market), but this does make more sense with the figure of $20M dollars (although it still works out to gold at $1800/troy oz.).
It's still a great deal of mass, and I definitely wouldn't put it in the trunk of a cab, but it sounds at least almost plausible, especially if the taxi is a van or SUV.