Felix Salmon discusses Hugo Chavez’s plan to transport 211 tons of gold ($12 billion) from Europe to Venezuela. I don’t know about you, but this has Die Hard 5 written all over it. Or maybe Lethal Weapon…

But here’s one last idea: why doesn’t Chávez crowdsource the problem? He could simply open a gold window at the Banco Central de Venezuela, where anybody at all could deliver standard gold bars. In return, the central bank would transfer to that person an equal number of gold bars in the custody of the Bank of England, plus a modest bounty of say 2% — that’s over $15,000 per 400-ounce bar, at current rates.