TORONTO – A massive heist worth C$20m has been reported at the Toronto Pearson International Airport, prompting authorities to launch investigations into the case.
The facility is often used to ship gold mined in the province of Ontario and Canadian officials say gold and valuables were stolen on Monday April, 17th.
Investigations are underway but police believe that the heist took place as an aircraft container carrying the goods arrived at the airport in the evening and was transported to a cargo holding facility. At this facility, the culprits hatched their plan.
The heist is arguably one of the biggest theft in Canadian history but Peel Regional Police inspector Stephen Duivesteyn described the heist as isolated and rare.
Revealing the details on Thursday, Mr Duivesteyn said the missing aircraft container was about 5 sq ft (.46 sq m) in size, and contained other items of monetary value besides gold.
“Our goal is to solve this theft. We want to solve it. I cannot provide exact details,” he said without mentioning who owned the container or whether the heist was captured on CCTV cameras but clarified that travelers were not in danger; Toronto Sun claims that the airline was Air Canada.
Though the heist has sent shockwaves across the law enforcers, still they are not considering the case as a public safety matter but are also looking at the suspicion that this could be an inside job.
On the other hand, the airport said in a statement that thieves did not gain access to the airport itself but “accessed the public side of a warehouse that is leased to a third party, outside of our primary security line”.
The incident comes almost a decade after Great Canadian Maple Syrup Heist when 3,000 tonnes of syrup valued at $18.7m were stolen from a storage facility in Quebec.
