On Monday, an air cargo container carrying at least $20 million Canadian dollars ($14.8 US million), was stolen from Toronto’s Pearson Airport. Police are not revealing who owned the stolen goods, nor gave details on what the stolen goods are, exactly.
"What I can say is that the container contained a high value shipment," said Peel Regional Police Inspector Stephen Duivesteyn. "It did contain gold, but was not exclusive to gold, and contained other items of monetary value."
“We’re three days in, so our investigators have their eyes open to all avenues. So we don’t want to make an error and sort of focus on one particular area, we’re kind of keeping a broad outlook on it, so we’re looking on all angles on how this item was stolen,” said Duivesteyn.
“Our goal right now is to solve this theft.”
The container was described as five or six square feet in size and had arrived and was unloaded at a holding facility early on Monday evening “as per normal procedure,” according to Duivesteyn, before it was removed by “illegal means” from the holding facility.
This isn’t the first time a major theft at Toronto’s airport has occurred. In 1953, 10 boxes of gold bars which were being flown to Montreal vanished from Pearson airport (the Malton Airport) in a heist that has never been solved.
“I would suggest this is an isolated incident. This is very rare,” said Duivesteyn, adding that it shouldn’t disrupt Canada’s busiest airport.