MIAMI, May 16 (Reuters) - A shipment of gold with a declared

value of $625,000 has gone missing in a suspected heist at Miami

International Airport, authorities said on Thursday.

A theft incident report from the Miami-Dade Police

Department said the gold, packed in a box, arrived at Miami

International early Tuesday morning on an American Airlines

flight from Guayaquil, Ecuador.

Miami International serves as a major trans-shipment point

for large quantities of gold produced in South America and

exported primarily to Switzerland for refining.

The plane's cargo was unloaded but the box containing the

gold disappeared after apparently being loaded onto a motorized

luggage cart or tug, the report said.

The cart was found in front of a gate of the same terminal

were the flight from Ecuador was unloaded, about an hour after

workers emptied the cargo hold, but without the box containing

the gold.

The police incident report did not say who owned the gold or

what its final destination was and an American Airlines security

official at the airport declined to comment on the case, saying

only that it was being investigated by the FBI.

"The FBI is aware of the situation," FBI spokesman Michael

Leverock told Reuters in an email.

Miami has seen the trans-shipment of gold rise sharply in

recent years as investors have turned to gold and its price has

risen. Gold is Miami's No. 1 import valued at almost $8 billion

last year, mostly from Mexico and Colombia, and almost all

destined for Switzerland, according to World City, a Miami-based

publication that tracks trade data.

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