A Year Later, Arrests Made in Brazen $17M Gold Heist

UPDATE Apr 17, 2024 1:00 AM CDT

A year after millions of dollars worth of gold and cash were stolen in a brazen airport heist in Toronto (the most recent reporting puts the value at $14.5 million), police say arrests have been made in the case. The National Post reports three men from Ontario, Canada, and one person from Florida have been arrested, and that a "cross-border gun trafficking plot" is alleged to be linked to the heist. Peel Regional Police and the US Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms Bureau will reveal details at a Wednesday news conference, the AP reports.

Nov 21, 2023 3:00 AM CST

More than seven months after a brazen heist at Toronto's Pearson International Airport, the thieves still have not been caught. A legal battle, however, is raging. Thieves used a counterfeit waybill to claim a cargo container holding nearly $17 million worth of gold bars and cash from an airport cargo warehouse. Brink's, the cash-handling company that had shipped the cargo in the first place, sued Air Canada in October, alleging the airline's sub-par security is to blame for the heist, which took place just 42 minutes after the cargo arrived at the warehouse, the Guardian reports. Now, Air Canada is countering with a lawsuit of its own.

The airline alleges Brink's did not declare the cargo's full value, purchase insurance for it, or pay for extra security, instead simply paying the standard rate for the airline to transport it from Zurich to Toronto, where the gold was headed to TD Bank and the cash to the Vancouver Bullion and Currency Exchange, the CBC reports. Brink's denies that, saying it did pay an additional amount and asked for the crates to have "special supervision." It also says it marked the waybills so staff at the cargo handling facility would know cash and gold bars were inside. In Air Canada's suit, the airline also argues that, due to the alleged lack of insurance, the most it would be liable for to Brink's would be about $12,000, the Toronto Star reports. Meanwhile, the criminal investigation is ongoing. (More Toronto stories.)