Massive amount of gold vanishes from Pearson airport in major heist

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It’s the kind of stuff movies are made of — a robbery from a supposedly secure facility, a huge amount of gold now missing and a mystery about who is behind it.

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Except this isn’t the script of a movie, it’s something that happened at Canada’s biggest airport this week.

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Peel Regional Police have enlisted the help of the RCMP following a massive gold heist at Pearson airport. Earlier this week, someone made off with 3,600 pounds of gold being moved through the airport. Pearson is often used to move gold mined in Ontario to customers around the world.

At current spot prices for gold, that would put value of the heist at more than $100 million.

While that sounds like a lot of gold, and it is definitely worth a lot, it could have been smuggled out of the airport in something as simple as a heavy-duty pickup truck.

According to sources, police believe the heist was done locally and are looking at organized crime elements in the region.

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Ports of all kinds, air and marine, have long been used by criminal elements to either steal or move stolen goods. Gangs and other organized crime elements work hard to either place their people in jobs at ports, like Pearson, or compromise those already employed there.

Several organized crime groups are known to have either people or allies placed at Pearson, monitoring their activities and controlling them is close to a full-time job.

The truth, though, is that at this point, investigators don’t know who stole the gold. It could be organized crime or it could be someone who took the chance to pull off one of the biggest robberies in Canadian history simply by stumbling upon the situation.

One thing appears clear — investigators don’t believe the gold was stolen in an attempt to fund terrorism. If that was the case, protocols would have seen at least a partial shutdown of parts of the airport as soon as police or security officials became aware of the robbery and that didn’t happen.

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It’s not even clear how the gold was taken out of the airport, or even if all or some of it might still be on site. At this point, investigators are simply stumped, not knowing if the gold was taken out in the back of an employee’s pickup truck or smuggled out of the country quickly with parcels loaded on various international flights.

Several sources, including officials with Peel Regional Police, confirmed early Wednesday that the robbery had taken place but would not at that point confirm the details.

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Pearson is rated as one of the top 30 cargo airports in the world with three main cargo facilities on site – Cargo North, Cargo East and Cargo West. Combined, these facilities have 1.2 million square feet of on-airport warehouse space and more than 240 truck loading doors.

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The airport handles 45% of all of Canada’s air cargo traffic with more than 1 million metric tonnes of cargo coming and going from 175 countries around the world. To say a lot of goods move through Pearson is an understatement — the airport is the lynchpin of the GTA’s logistics system.

This isn’t the first major gold heist to happen out of Pearson. In 1952, ten boxes of gold were bound for Montreal but only four boxes showed up. That heist was valued at between $215,000 to $330,000 at the time or more than $3 million today.

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A LOOK AT HUGE HEISTS IN CANADA OVER THE YEARS

1953: 10 boxes of gold bars worth between $215,000 and $330,000 at the time (valued at about $3 million today) were in a locked steel cage in a warehouse at Toronto’s Malton Airport (now Pearson Airport) waiting to be loaded onto a cargo flight to Montreal. But when the plane arrived, only four boxes were found. Interrogations of all workers turned up zilch and police were left stumped. They eventually theorized an insider tipped off the thieves, who were never caught.

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1972: Three men rappelled into the Museum of Fine Arts in Montreal and made off with millions of dollars of jewelry and priceless paintings, then vanished into thin air. The value of the missing pieces was estimated to be about $2 million at the time (valued at about $13.8 million now) but could be more since the authenticity of the works of art can’t ever be confirmed unless they are returned or found.

1985: Police arrested seven people in connection with a heist that saw a reported $68.5 million (valued at about $164.6 million today) in stocks and bonds stolen from Merrill Lynch’s Montreal offices two months prior. But it was essentially a worthless crime as the papers they stole contained serial numbers, which securities sent out around the world, making it all nearly impossible to cash in.

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2007: Gemstar, a North York diamond distributor, was left dazed and confused after thieves made off with $5 to $6 million in the precious stones. The robbers cut the business’ phone line, disabled the security system, entered the locked building, got into the office and took their time to cut open two large safes containing the cut and uncut loose diamonds. They disappeared without a trace.

2011 and 2012: Nearly 3,000 tons of maple syrup worth $18.7 million was stolen from a Quebec warehouse by thieves who drained large barrels and replaced the sticky stuff with water. The theft went unnoticed for months until a routine inventory check discovered the sweet switch. Two-thirds of the syrup was recovered, and the thieves with a sweet tooth were handed hefty fines and prison sentences.

— compiled by Denette Wilford