GOLDEN INERTIA

Visiting crime enthusiasts might remember my passing take on the recent gold thefts in Japan, of the unguarded pure gold bathtub and the unsecured 100kg block of solid gold, and how it was unlikely that any of the gold would ever be found, since thieves sharp enough to succeed in stealing it could so easily melt it down into other forms...

Well the bathtub lifters are still wallowing in their success somewhere, but I was overestimating the acuity, or underestimating the inertia, of the the three who made off with the 100 kg block. But then gold can do that to thieves, who in this case apparently just sat around blissfully looking at their treasure - or most of it - This is our gold: our gold! It is quite beautiful don't you think...

Seems the police found the perpetrators at home with 2/3 of the purloined chunk still sitting there like only 66 kg of gold can sit there. Of course once the trio had set the block down, it was a real hassle to move, so it appears they were just withdrawing bits of it at a time, like a gleaming ATM on the coffee table. One of the thieves was a Romanian woman, another was of unconfirmed nationality, so maybe the golden inertia of abrupt wealth was also compounded by linguistic and cultural difficulties, which history tells us are at their worst when gold is involved...

THE LAND OF THE RISING BATHTUB

You may remember my flaky post back in March about the purloined million dollar golden carp and the 100 kilo gold block that was stolen, and how amazing it was that neither precious item was actually guarded or otherwise secured...

After the latter theft, I figured that anybody else in the country who had anything sizeable made out of the Midas stuff would take heed and make haste to secure their equity; well I was wrong. But in an oddly gestaltic way, it is comforting to realize that trust is so hard to kill in Japan.

Turns out that a certain hotel's famous crane-flanked golden bathtub, 176 pounds of 18kt gold worth about a million dollars, was not fastened to the floor or surveilled, and was secured simply by a chain across the door. Last night, the chain was cut and the bathtub stolen. Nobody saw anything. As the hotel's website says, the tub is only available a few hours a day, for security reasons...

Some folks never change. As for me, I figure that anybody else in the country who has anything sizeable made out of the Midas stuff will take heed and make haste to secure their equity.