OTTAWA — Early Monday night, a particular container, about 5 to 6 sq. ft, was unloaded from an airplane at Toronto’s worldwide airport. Inside it was greater than 20 million Canadian {dollars}, about $14.8 million, in gold and different valuables. It was swiftly moved right into a safe cargo holding facility.
Then, like many a suitcase, it vanished.
Asserting the theft on Thursday, Inspector Stephen Duivesteyn of the Peel Regional Police, the drive that patrols Toronto Pearson Airport, supplied few particulars about how the high-value container had disappeared past maybe the apparent: by “unlawful means.”
The investigators gave so little info apparently as a result of the theft remained a thriller to them.
“We’re three days in, so our investigators have their eyes open to all avenues,” Inspector Duivesteyn advised reporters in Mississauga, Ontario, the place the airport is. “We’re taking a look at all angles of how this merchandise was stolen.”
Whereas he known as such thefts “very uncommon,” he declined to say who had shipped the container, the place the flight with the container had originated or which airline or cargo firm had flown it into the airport. He additionally declined to reveal its weight.
“For the general public fearful about flying out, there must be no concern,” Inspector Duivesteyn mentioned. “We don’t take into account this a public security matter.”
No arrests have been made, nor did the police identify any suspects, though Inspector Duivesteyn didn’t rule out the likelihood that organized crime was concerned. Additionally it is unclear to the police if the cargo or the thieves are even nonetheless within the nation.
It’s not the primary time that gold has vanished at a Canadian airport.
In 1952, six of 10 containers of gold bullion touring on a aircraft from Toronto’s airport had vanished by the point the aircraft landed in Montreal. The disappearance of the gold, which had a worth equal to 2.4 million Canadian {dollars} in right now’s figures, was by no means solved.
And in 1974, 5 unrefined gold bars, price 4.6 million Canadian {dollars} in present cash and destined for the Royal Canadian Mint, had been stolen from a lockup in Ottawa’s airport after a guard was threatened with weapons and handcuffed to a pipe. That theft was finally attributed to a bunch referred to as the Stopwatch Gang that grew to become well-known for timing and planning its heists effectively.
The Peel police are investigating the newest gold theft with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
Inspector Duivesteyn vowed that it could not turn out to be an unsolved case, in distinction to the earlier gold theft on the airport.
“This may take the perfect of my investigators,” he mentioned.
