But not in a single shipment. I don't know how much ships and airplanes leave Australia each day, but let's say it's 1000 (I guess the 2 or 3 main airports alone would do that, but let's say) and if each would take a kilo of gold with them, all produced gold can be send abroad. That's a very different situation from what Chavez apparently is trying to do.
I don't understand why this is such a big deal. The solution is right there in the article - send a few ships from the navy, like the Spanish treasure fleets of old.
If England doesn't want armed Venezuelan ships in their waters, use a freighter and escort it all the way back. Divide up the cargo between the ships if you're really paranoid.
The author is inventing a problem where none exists. Transporting large amounts of heavy cargo overseas is a solved problem.
Ordinarily, you'd want insurance on such a shipment. Even if you sent the navy, getting insurance for the transport between the bank vault and the armed ships could be an issue.
Just saying that this is not a new problem and there are tested procedures for moving that sort of quantity of gold around the world. (The article seems to imply that a "new" solution was needed).
For example, swapping physical metal in one location for physical metal in another location is common practice among banks and large investors. They could swap metal to various other locations around the world before shipping it back home bit by bit.
The main reason large orders are split into smaller shipments is the risk (and insurance costs). The Venezuelan government may decide that it's navy can provide better insurance than a commercial insurer, in which case it might make sense to do it all in one shipment (which would be quite unusual).
