Peel Regional Police have quietly conceded that millions in gold stolen from Toronto Pearson Airport in April 2023 was likely quickly smuggled out of Canada to the Middle East or South Asia.
“We believe a large portion has gone overseas to markets that are flush with gold,” lead investigator Det. Sgt. Mike Mavity told members of the Peel Police Service Board during a June 21 meeting.
“That would be Dubai, or India, where you can take gold with serial numbers on it and they will still honour it and melt it down…. And we believe that happened very shortly after the incident.”
Police have been investigating the low-tech robbery for almost 15 months — probing how a man gained entry to an Air Canada Cargo terminal with a duplicate waybill for a shipment of seafood, and then drove off with a palette full of gold bars. But few updates have been given to the press or public.
On the first anniversary of the heist, investigators held a splashy media conference to announce they had arrested nine men in connection with the case and were searching for three others.
Yet little was said about the links between the alleged criminals, or what ultimately happened to the 400 kilograms of still-missing gold.
The new Police Service Board briefing — delivered on a summer Friday, with no media present — came on the heels of a CBC News investigation highlighting several lingering questions about the heist, including the force’s assertions that the robbery was a case of “reverse alchemy” where gold became guns, as evidenced by the seizure of 65 pistols. Peel Police declined an interview request for that story, and refused to answer written questions, even those pertaining to the most basic details of the crime.
Members of the board devoted several minutes of the meeting to criticism of the CBC News report, but the presentation by investigators validated much of the content of the CBC investigation.
In addition to admitting the trail now points to Dubai and India, police also acknowledged the 6,600 gold bars were worth millions more at the time of the heist than they had repeatedly stated.
“Whether it’s $20 million or $34 million might be a mitigating factor come sentencing, but it doesn’t in my opinion change a lot,” said Mavity. “From a police standpoint, the offence is theft over $5000.”
Multiple charges have been laid more than a year after a heist at Toronto Pearson International Airport, but tens of millions of dollars of gold is still missing. CBC’s Jonathon Gatehouse investigates where it could have gone, and uncovers big holes in the case that police claim to have cracked.
The detectives also clarified statements they made during the April press conference, backing away from prior suggestions that all of the stolen gold had been melted down in the basement of a Mississauga jewellery store.
“We believe a very small quantity was melted at that jewellery shop,” said Det. Gord Oakes.
“At no point were we ever alleging that 400 kilograms of gold were melted down in a small jewelry shop by hand. That wasn’t the message that we were trying to relay,” added Mavity.
For the first time, police sketched out some of the alleged links between the men they have charged in connection with the robbery. Among the new details:
Police now say much of the gold stolen in the massive 2023 heist at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport is now overseas, ‘in Dubai or India.’ Police also confirm the gold stolen is worth millions more than originally announced.
According to the briefing, police are still investigating the heist, and looking for both the missing gold and money that might have been made from its sale. Next steps, the board was told, include the examination of over 40 electronic devices seized from the suspects, and the issuing of production orders to financial institutions for banking records.
The board was also given an update on the spiralling cost of the ‘Project 24 Karat’ investigation — $5.3 million so far, with an estimated final price tag of $10 million. To date, the 20 officers assigned to the case have logged 28,000 regular hours and an additional 9,500 hours of overtime.
The update provided no additional information on the purported link to cross-border gun-running.
Jeff Hershberg, a Toronto criminal defense lawyer, says he isn’t surprised by the new information.
“I always question the police narrative. It’s hard not to after seeing everything I’ve seen,” he said. “They have these flashy press conferences … and it isn’t always the narrative that comes out once the trial begins.”
“I’ve never seen stolen gold involved in any of my gun cases that I’ve done. I don’t see the link that the police are trying to portray here,” Herschberg added. “Time will tell when disclosure is given.”
Jonathon Gatehouse can be contacted via email at jonathon.gatehouse@cbc.ca, or reached via the CBC’s digitally encrypted Securedrop system at https://www.cbc.ca/securedrop/
