They traced them after they left Monero just like every other article that has claimed this. But "we traced Monero" makes great clickbait.

Cash is great locally but you can't instantly transact with anyone on the planet with cash

-Can't carry arbitrarily large amounts.
-More vulnerable to confiscation and theft.
-More difficult to verify authenticity on-the-fly.
-Issuance is centralized, unpredictable, and doesn't require PoW.
-Not as easily divisible (Need to carry specific denominations and change)
-Can't trustlessly exchange for crypto (no atomic swaps)
-Can't have multiple people with simultaneous ownership and control over the same cash (multisig) 

 250g of benjamins is bulkier than 250g of gold, sure. For most of us, we're not spending 250g worth of either day-to-day. Physical presence is a much higher bar than remote access of a computer. Authenticity is indeed a problem. Gold issuance is not centralized and does require work. Divisibility is indeed a problem. 

 Yep, gold, cash, and crypto each have their own advantages. Use what makes sense for your situation. 

 Cold, hard cash.