Canada's Biggest Gold Heist "was Inside Job"
April 18, 24
(IDEX Online) - Police investigating last year's gold heist at Toronto airport - the biggest in Canada's history - believe it was an "inside job".
They say two Air Canada employees, one former and one current, are among the nine suspects who have been charged or identified as being involved over the theft of 6,600 gold bars valued at CAN$20m, or US$14.5m.
The owner of a Toronto jewelry store is among those arrested. Three of the suspects remain at large.
The perpetrators used a fraudulent airway bill (carrier's document of instruction) to dupe staff at a warehouse near Toronto's Pearson International Airport on 17 April last year.
They then used a forklift truck to empty a cargo container packed with gold and foreign currency worth CAN$2.5m (US$1.8m).
"The airway bill was for a legitimate shipment of seafood that was picked up the day before," said Det. Sgt. Mike Mavity, "This duplicate airway bill was printed off from a printer within Air Canada cargo."
Police say they seized smelting pots, casts, and metal molds, and believe the vast majority of the stolen gold has been melted down.
"This story is a sensational one and one which probably, we jokingly say, belongs in a Netflix series," Nishan Duraiappah, chief of police at Ontario's Peel Regional Police, told reporters at a press conference yesterday (17 April).
Pic courtesy Peel Regional Police.