quote:

Originally posted by a1abdj:
First thing to do would be to tell nobody. Otherwise you'll likely loose it just like what probably happened with this guy. This is an older story, and I haven't seen any updates.

He's right. You can't just walk down the street with a huge gold bar and sell it without raising some questions. You could however buy yourself a torch, melt it into smaller amounts, and send it to refineries all over the world without a single question being raised.

Just pay the taxes on your new income, and you're good to go.

quote:

Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:
OK. Good plan, but who owns the bullion? I don't store my gold in a gas tank. There is an owner somewhere.

quote:

Originally posted by sigmonkey:

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:
If the person he bought the tank from owned the gold, then the argument would be that ownership transferred to the purchaser. More likely, however, whoever put the gold in the tank wasn’t the owner and therefore the gold would legally belong to whomever it was stolen from. Legitimate ownership of stolen property doesn’t transfer to the thief.

"Always with the negative waves Moriarty, always with the negative waves."

quote:

Originally posted by 4MUL8R:
What a complete idiot. Kiss that bullion goodbye.

quote:

Originally posted by a1abdj:

quote:

OK. Good plan, but who owns the bullion?

The guy who bought it in the tank. Unless noted otherwise, generally when a person buys something they own everything within.

Who owned the diesel fuel inside the tank? The same person that owned the gold inside the same tank.

quote:

Originally posted by a1abdj:
Maybe if the gold was stolen in the UK by the previous tank owner I'd agree.

Using your example, let's say my Sig is stolen and hidden in car. Car is later seized and auctioned. Buyer exports car to Mexico. Mexican sells it to a guy in Guatemala who then finds the gun.

I'd say that the Guatemalan is now the proud owner of a Sig.

As far as a US example, I had a customer that owned an artifact from NASA. It was purchased from a woman who purchased it at a Marshal's sale when the guy in possession was sent to prison for stealing/counterfeiting space artifacts.

Woman sent bag to NASA to authenticate, and NASA seized it saying it belonged to them. The guy in prison stole it from a museum who had it on loan from NASA.

Judge said she owned it. Government sold it, as is. She purchased stolen item in good faith.
Flipped her sub $1000 purchase into $2,000,000 if I recall. Then she went after NASA again for damaging it while in their custody, diminishing its value.

In this case it was likely one government involved in war, either seizing assets of others or hiding their own. Like in the above case, if the government can't keep track of it's own items and those items are later sold, too bad for the government. This wasn't some guy knocking off the local pawn shop and hiding the jewelry in his car.