Record crimes in Toronto
Canada’s biggest gold heist: He came for seafood – and left with 6,600 bars of precious metal
“This story belongs in a Netflix series”: Police Chief Nishan Duraiappah on Wednesday at a press conference on the largest gold heist in Canadian history. Behind him: the crime vehicle.
© Carlos Osorio / Reuters
It didn’t work without help from within: Exactly one year after a cinematic robbery at the largest airport in Canada, the police present nine suspects. Two of them worked for a well-known airline. But where is their prey?
The cargo appeared unsuspicious. The driver of the white five-ton truck was supposed to pick up seafood, according to the delivery note that the man handed out at the entrance to the cargo facility at the largest airport Canada’s presented. But when he left the site again, there were no frozen shrimps and mussels piled up in his truck, but rather 6,600 gold bars, weighing 400 kilos and worth the equivalent of 13.6 million euros, alongside banknotes worth 1.7 million euros.
The bill of lading was a duplicate of a delivery from the previous day; the driver is probably part of a perfidious weapons ring; the truck first travels on a busy highway and then over all the mountains of the North American prairie; and Toronto Pearson International Airport just became the site of the largest gold heist in Canadian history.
Exactly one year later, on this Wednesday, the police presented nine suspects. Investigators arrested five of them in Canada, and three suspected perpetrators are still being sought on a nationwide arrest warrant. The gang’s ninth man – most likely the driver of the stolen goods – was caught by police in Pennsylvania in September. US officials stopped the 25-year-old for a traffic offense. He fled on foot. He is now in custody in neighboring Canada.
Police found 65 firearms in his rental car. One of them had its serial number cut off, eleven had been reported stolen, and two had been converted into fully automatic rifles.
Every good crime story has a traitor. Also with this story from Canada
Gold should be turned into weapons – that is the assumption of the investigative group “24 Karat”, which has evaluated video cameras from 225 companies and residents in the area around the airport and interviewed 50 people in the past few months. Peel Region Police Chief Nishan Duraiappah stood pointedly in front of the truck used in the gold heist at Wednesday’s press conference and said: “This story probably belongs, as we joke, in a Netflix series.”
And because at least every second good crime series includes a traitor, this story from Canada has that to offer too. Without one inside job, i.e. help from inside the airport circle, the robbery would never have been possible. The fake seafood delivery note came from an Air Canada printer.
Among the nine suspects are – in addition to a jeweler from Toronto – two employees from the cargo department of Canada’s largest airline. A 54-year-old was arrested. A search is currently underway for a 31-year-old who was still an employee at the time of the crime. Particularly perfidious: One of the two is said to have led investigators through the facility before his involvement was discovered.
1990, Montreal Airport: There are amazing parallels
The valuable stolen property originally belonged to a Swiss bank and a precious metals factory, which commissioned a Canadian security transport company to transport the gold and foreign currency from Zurich to Toronto. 42 minutes after the Air Canada plane was unloaded on April 17, 2023, the goods were already stolen. The security company called Brink’s has now sued the airline for damages.
Curiously, it is not the first time that a gold transport from the service provider has disappeared from an airport. In 1990, robbers in a garbage truck drove through the airport perimeter fence in the Canadian capital Montreal and ambushed a private jet that was taxiing toward the runway. Brink’s chartered the jet. It was loaded with gold and other goods worth almost 12.8 million euros. The case was only solved years later.
A fate that could also befall the investigators of “24 Karat”. So far they have only confiscated 430,000 Canadian dollars (around 293,000 euros) as well as six gold bracelets worth around 89,000 Canadian dollars (around 60,000 euros) as well as melting pots and molds. The police assume that the gold bars were melted down and re-pressed in order to resell the precious metal. According to the investigation, the crime ring then wanted to use the money it earned to purchase weapons and smuggle them into Canada.
The Netflix-ready plan failed. The five arrested in Canada have since been released on bail and are awaiting trial on 19 charges. The whole country is still looking for their three accomplices. The man who drove up to the gate of an airport warehouse one afternoon with an unsuspicious bill for seafood is now sitting in an American cell.
Sources: “The New York Times“; “Washington Post”; Bloomberg; ““Los Angeles Times”; “National Post”