Achi news desk-
Peel Regional Police and the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms say they plan to announce arrests Wednesday after the theft of about $20 million in gold and nearly $2 million in cash from Toronto’s Pearson International Airport .
The announcement, to be made at 8:30am ET in Brampton, comes exactly one year after the event.
CBS News will carry the announcement live.
In a news advisory, law enforcement services said they would release “details and arrests made regarding the theft of gold and cash from Pearson International Airport” as part of Project 24K, a joint task investigation into the high-value theft .
Peel Police Chief Nishan Duraiappah, Detective Sgt. Mike Mavity and Eric DeGree, special agent in charge of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, are scheduled to speak.
The police have not said much about the case in the last 12 months.
In response to recent questions from CBC News, police have said that investigators are “working around the clock to locate, arrest and charge those responsible for this crime.”
Brink sues Air Canada over theft
Meanwhile Brink’s, a security company from Miami, is suing Air Canada for allegedly allowing a thief to walk into the Air Canada facility at the airport and walk out with the gold bars and cash.
In an email Tuesday, Brink’s spokeswoman Kaye Faris said: “We were notified of the news of the announcement today as well, and we look forward to learning more from the Peel Police Department at their news conference tomorrow.”
According to court documents obtained by CBC News, on April 14, 2023, Brink’s was commissioned by two Swiss banks – Raiffeisen and Valcambi – to move more than 400 kilograms of gold, and $1,945,843 in US bills, from Zurich to Toronto.
At the time, the gold was worth just over 13.2 million Swiss francs, or nearly $20 million Canadian at current exchange rates.
The cargo was loaded onto flight AC881, which departed Zurich at 1:25pm local time on April 17 and arrived safely at Pearson at 3:56pm, without incident.
The two loads of cargo – emblazoned with the words BANKNOTES and GOLDBARS – were unloaded from the plane about 20 minutes later and deposited at an Air Canada storage facility about an hour and a half after that.
That’s when things went wrong, the lawsuit alleges.
“At approximately 18:32,” Brink claims in the documents, “an unknown individual gained access to AC’s cargo storage facilities. There were no protocols or security features in place to monitor, restrict or otherwise regulate the unknown individual’s access to the facilities.”
The unnamed individual handed Air Canada personnel a waybill. A waybill is a document that contains all the details of the cargo including instructions about what it contains and where it should go.
Brink’s says the waybill was a copy of one attached to an unrelated shipment. Brink’s says the airline took the waybill “without verifying its authenticity in any way.”
“After receiving the fraudulent waybill, AC personnel released the shipments to the unknown individual, after which the unknown individual escaped with the cargo.”
Brink says Air Canada handled the cargo “negligently and carelessly” and was “reckless” for failing to follow proper security measures, despite charging higher shipping rates for its “safe service.” It says the airline failed to provide “storage facilities with effective vaults and cages, constant CCTV surveillance and active human surveillance patrols.”
Brink’s says it reached out to Air Canada on April 27, 2023 to let the airline know it is demanding full reimbursement of the costs it has incurred. Brink’s is pursuing the matter in Federal Court.
Air Canada has denied allegations
In a statement of defense on November 8, 2023, Air Canada denied “all allegations” in Brink’s suit, saying it had fulfilled its carrier contracts and denying any improper or “negligent” conduct.
The country’s largest airline says Brink’s failed to indicate the value of the shipment on the waybill – a document usually issued by a carrier detailing the shipment – and if Brink’s suffered losses, a multilateral agreement known as the Montreal Convention would capping Air Canada Liability.
“For his own reasons he elected Brink’s Switzerland Ltd. to not declare a value for shipment and to pay the standard rate for the AC Secure services product and, to the best of Air Canada’s knowledge, chose not to insure these shipments,” the Air Canada filing reads, adding that Brink was “fully aware of the consequences.”
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