Canadian Police Investigating $15M Heist at Toronto Airport
Canadian police are investigating a major heist at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport in which approximately CAD $20M (US $14.8M) of gold and other valuable assets vanished on Monday.
Facts
- Canadian police are investigating a major heist at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport in which approximately CAD $20M (US $14.8M) of gold and other valuable assets vanished on Monday.1
- Peel Police Inspector Stephen Duivesteyn spoke to the media Thursday and said a "high-value container" was stolen after it was off-loaded into a holding cargo facility from a plane that had arrived at Canada’s busiest airport.2
- According to Duivesteyn, the missing aircraft container was about 5 square feet in size and "contained other items of monetary value" in addition to the gold. He added that his team is investigating "all avenues."3
- The inspector said the entire process of unloading and handling the assets was in line with normal procedure, and the valuable cargo "was removed by illegal means" after its arrival, calling the situation "very rare."4
- Meanwhile, the Greater Toronto Airports Authority said thieves accessed the public side of a warehouse leased to a third party and outside its primary security line. Much of Canada’s gold is frequently at Pearson before being flown overseas, and nearly half of its air cargo goes through the airport.5
- Air Canada cargo operations were allegedly handling the high-value goods when they disappeared, but an Air Canada spokesperson told CTV News Toronto that the company has "no information to provide."6
Sources: 1NBC, 2Thestar.Com, 3BBC News, 4Reuters, 5Al Jazeera, and 6CP24.
Narratives
- Narrative A, as provided by Guardian. Regional and national police are looking into this massive heist. There isn’t much information available at this time, but investigators believe this is an isolated incident that doesn't appear to be a professional job. Thefts like this are rare in Canada, and authorities will get to the bottom of it.
- Narrative B, as provided by Financial Times. While this is indeed a rare incident, it isn't the first gold heist at Pearson Airport. Given its status as the epicenter of Canada's air cargo traffic, dealing with millions of dollars worth of valuables, this embarrassing stunt calls into question the proficiency of its security.
