Too many bodies.
A job like this took at least 4 airport employee in on it. Planes are unloaded/loaded in teams of any where from 2 to 8 ground crew people, with a flight like this one, this early in the morning from Ecuador to Miami , the plane they used was a variation of the 737. I doubt this plane was turned around right way too, meaning it probably was not used for another flight right away , so the guys could take there time so 2 probably 4 guys , ground crew, were put to unload this.
Way it works is you have two guys in the belly of the plane , throwing bags, boxes etc stuff on the belt, them the other two guys take the things off the belt and put them on the dolly and those same two guys drive the stuff off, if there is a lot of stuff they take it , its unloaded on to conveyor belts which brings the baggage up to passenger. A box like this though is considered cargo, this box would stay on the dolly cart and is taken to a semi off site but still within the airport cargo area, from there the person receiving this goes and signs off for it. Something of note too, a international flight like this from south america SHOULD HAVE had custom inspectors being in and around the plane & baggage unloading area until everything was unloaded.
( i know all these cause i worked 8 years security at a airport)
This gold was stolen somewhere between the baggage unloading area and the cargo area. More likely than not the cargo area. All the guys unloading this would have to be in on it , simply because the amount of effort it would take for something of this weight to disappear, you would have to get all 4 guys in on it so they would keep there mouths shut when the police come knocking.
There is the problem though, the dudes that worked that flight didn't bounce , if there were smart they would have left the country but i bet you they didn't, one cause they broke , that gold money is not coming in for MONTHS if that. So airport police, Miami police, custom and the fbi all already got the name and history of each one of these guys and are grilling them. Unless there stone cold criminals with nothing to lose, someone is cracking.
Back to your plan though, dropping 4 bodies at once is messy and suspect, even if you made them disappear, you would have to have some deep contacts to not have this get back to you and your associates.
Best way to do something like this is like i said use the minimum amount of people possible , which in this case could have been possible with two , and have those guys leave the country ASAP, am talking about, steal the gold, drop it off, and withing 30min your on a greyhound never ever to return back here , even them though the gold is worth at "retail" 625k according to the story
your getting maybe half of that if your lucky when you sell it off, them you gotta pay off those 2-4 guys , which if you split it evenly ( which your not) is going to leave them with about 78k each, which means in reality these guys ( the baggage handlers) maybe saw 20-30k if they lucky.
in the words of the great movie heat
It's like risk versus reward, baby.
load it on to a new plane, add a new box to the manifest, arrive at new airport, unload, deep shyt
