Originally Posted by
twochai
I remember passing through Dubai in 1966 (yes, I'm that old, but I still remember) looking at a Trucial Oman scout (the local peace keepers in the days of British rule) armed with a .303 Enfield, who was sleeping in a chair while guarding a 6' X 6' wooden pallet loaded with three or four layers of gold ingots (20 Kgs. standard weight???).
When I asked the BOAC engineer awaiting a BOAC VC-10 in transit he said: "Oh, that's the weekly gold shipment. The gold is smuggled out of BOM in dhows across the Indian ocean, to be unloaded at the port of Dubai where it gets melted down to ingots and sold to Indian buyers in BOM".
It was a nice piece of steady revenue for BOAC, just part of the circular supply chain!
Plus ca change, plus la meme chose!
Hmmm, so the gold is purchased in Bombay, smuggled to Dubai, cast into ingots, and then shipped back to Bombay and sold. Where does the profit get made?