Police officers to report arrests in gold heist at Pearson Airport

Peel Regional Police and the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms plan to announce an arrest Wednesday in connection with the theft of nearly $20 million in gold and nearly $2 million in cash from Toronto's Pearson International Airport.

The announcement, which will be made at 8:30 a.m. in Brampton, comes a year after the incident.

CBC News will cover the announcement live.

In a news advisory, law enforcement said it was releasing “details and arrests related to the theft of gold and cash from Pearson International Airport” as part of Project 24K, a joint operational investigation into high-value theft.

Peel Police Chief Nishan Durayappa, Det.-Sgt. Mike Maviti and Special Agent in Charge of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Eric DeGrey will speak.

Police have said little about the case in the past 12 months.

In response to recent questions from CBC News, police said investigators are “working around the clock to locate, arrest and charge those responsible for this crime.”

Brink sued Air Canada for theft

Miami-based security firm Brink's is suing Air Canada for allegedly allowing a thief to enter an Air Canada facility at the airport and leave with gold bars and cash.

In an email Tuesday, Brink's spokeswoman Kaye Faris said, “We also received word of the announcement today and expect to hear more from the Peel Police Department at tomorrow's press conference.”

According to court documents obtained by CBC News, on April 14, 2023, Brink's ordered two Swiss banks, Raiffeisen and Valkambi, to transport more than 400 kilograms of gold and $1,945,843 in US bills from Zurich to Toronto.

At the time, the gold was worth just over 13.2 million Swiss francs, or about 20 million Canadian dollars at the current exchange rate.

The cargo was loaded onto flight AC881, which departed from Zurich at 13:25 local time on April 17 and arrived safely at Pearson at 15:56 without incident.

The two pieces of cargo, emblazoned with the words BANKNOTES and GOLDBARS, were taken off the plane about 20 minutes later and then put into Air Canada storage about an hour and a half later.

That's when things went wrong, the lawsuit says.

“At approximately 6:32 p.m.,” Brink claims in the documents, “an unknown person gained access to the AC cargo bays. There are no security protocols or capabilities to monitor, restrict or otherwise regulate unauthorized access to the facilities.”

The man, who has not been named, handed over his travel document to Air Canada staff. A consignment note is a document containing all the details of the consignment, including instructions on what it contains and where it should go.

According to Brink, the waybill was a copy of a document attached to an unrelated shipment. According to Brink, the airline obtained the travel document “without verifying its authenticity in any way”.

“After obtaining the fraudulent waybill, the AC staff sent the goods to an unknown person, after which the unknown person fled with the goods.”

Brink's says Air Canada handled the cargo “negligently and negligently” and is “negligent” for failing to implement adequate security measures despite higher shipping rates for its “safe service.” It says the airline failed to provide “storage areas equipped with efficient storage and cages, constant video surveillance and active human control patrols.”

Brink's said it will contact Air Canada on April 27, 2023 to inform the airline that it is seeking full reimbursement for its expenses. Brink's is pursuing the matter in Federal Court.

Air Canada has denied the allegations

In a statement of defense dated Nov. 8, 2023, Air Canada denied “every allegation” in Brink's suit, saying it had honored its contracts of carriage and denied any wrongdoing or “reckless” conduct.

The country's largest airline says Brink did not include the cost of carriage in the bill of lading – usually a document containing details of a carrier's shipment – and if Brink incurs a loss, a multilateral treaty known as the Montreal Convention will be covered. Liability of Air Canada.

“Brink's Switzerland Ltd. chose for its own reasons not to declare the cost of carriage and to pay the standard rate for the AC Secure services product and, to the best of Air Canada's knowledge, chose not to insure these shipments,” Air Canada said in the filing, adding that Brink “fully understands the consequences.”