To some, gold is merely a tradition; to others, such as the first secretary of the North Korean embassy in the capital of Bangladesh, it is one of the easiest ways to smuggle $1.7 million. Or at least should have been on paper. Instead, what happened on Thursday night when Son Young-nam landed in Dhaka on a flight from Singapore, carrying a ridiculous amount of physical gold and hoping to get through customs without a glitch due his diplomatic status, things went downhill fast.