Colombian cops seize cocaine World Cup

Colombian cops thwarted a cunning cocaine smuggling plan when they seized a replica of the World Cup fashioned from Bolivian marching powder. The cocaine World Cup The trophy was detected by security checks at a mail warehouse at Bogota airport, packed in a box destined for an address in Madrid. The statuette is 35cm high …

[Restricted Access]

Well...

blow me away...

[Anonymous Coward]

Er, physics?

How do you stuff 11kg of cocaine in the same volume as 6kg gold?

At that weight, the real statue I suppose would be mostly solid gold; if it was hollow it'd weigh considerably less. And last I heard cocaine wasn't denser than gold. So how does this work, exactly?

[Gulfie]

The key here is density

If the two trophies are the same size, then Cocaine is simply more dense than gold (and gold isn't exactly lightweight).

According to Google, gold is 19.3g per cc (cubic centimeter) but it was unable to give me a figure for marching powder.

[Oliver Mayes]

Also

One popular theory is that the real 'gold' trophy is mostly hollow, as if it was solid gold then it would be impossible to lift one handed, let alone hold up in the air and wave it around as the winners generally do.

[Anonymous Coward]

The fifa says ``solid'':

``The new trophy is 36 cm high, made of solid 18-carat gold and weighs 6175 grammes. The base contains two layers of semi-precious malachite while the bottom side of the Trophy bears the engraved year and name of each FIFA World Cup winner since 1974.''

It could be their ``solid'' doesn't mean what everyone else thinks it means. So to figure this one out we'd probably need to do some guesstimating its actual volume and so on and so forth. Still, the math doesn't add up. Any way you turn it the cocaine-and-gasoline must be a bit, probably quite a bit, denser than I'd expect it to be (gasoline floats on water, for one), to fit 11kg in the fake, which is *smaller* than the real one.

Of course, yes, it could be they're quoting weight after dilution with something else again (then quote ``street worth'' based on the pure stuff again, conveniently forgetting that the smugglers get paid wholesale). To me that's poor form, from police who lie (or perhaps are genuinely that stupid) and from hacks who propagate the sensation without checking the facts. ``What're they snorting?'' would be too easy to ask.

* http://www.fifa.com/classicfootball/history/worldcup/trophies.html

[I didn't do IT.]

Re: Hollow Earth Theory

Yep, according to a professor on the Beeb, if the trophy were solid (18K) gold, the volume would dictate a mass of 70kg, instead of the 6.175 stipulated.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/10301713.stm

[Anonymous Coward]

RE: Er, physics?

Who says they're the same volume? The article definitely doesn't, in fact, it mentions a height discrepancy.

[Anonymous Coward]

quite easy actually

I presume the powder in the statue was pure, meaning probably lethal if someone snorted it directly.

However before distributing it is often cut with benign elements, baking powder I believe is one example. I suspect the reported weight of 11 kg would be the mass of the cut street version in an effort to make the bust seem bigger than it actually is.

You know truth in numbers and all that.

As for how I know all this, I blame reading too many Tom Clancy books.

[Anonymous Coward]

Are we still talking cocaine?

"in an effort to make the bust seem bigger than it actually is."

*snigger*

[vic 4]

Copyright Violation

They'll probably get a greater sentence place on them from Fifa suing them for making a copy of the cup.

[Jimboom]

Perhaps they should have given that to the UK team

It may not have made them play any better but at least it would have been more entertaining.

Paris, cause when it comes down to blow, she's the one in the know.

[gnomedeplum]

re: er physics

according to wolfram 5 kg of gold would fit into a sphere of only 40 mm radius and cocaine would be a sphere of 130mm radius not including gasoline so its possible the real trophy is hollow

[Sooty]

presumably

the 1.2ish Kg of something other than gold is used to pad out the rest of it.

It's unlikely to be hollow as it would be very embarrassing if some overpaid fool dropped it and dented the thing.

[Blue eyed boy]

What's Spanish for

The Lavender Hill Mob? How many more replicas are there in the rest of the boxes marked R?

[KayKay]

What's solid?

I have solid grounds for believing they mean 'solid gold" in the sense of gold all the way through, not just plated.

That means it can easily be hollow, but the WALLS of it are all gold. Whereas the replica would have been really solid, ie the same material all the way through with no cavities.