Police say they have arrested multiple people and laid 19 charges in connection with the theft of some $22.5 million in gold and cash from Toronto Pearson International Airport last spring.
At a news conference Wednesday, Peel Regional Police said their joint task force investigation with the U.S. Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Bureau (ATF) also interrupted a “large quantity of firearms” intended for import into Canada by individuals allegedly involved in the heist.
“This story is a sensational one, and one which probably, we jokingly say, belongs in a Netflix series,” Peel police Chief Nishan Duraiappah said.
Lead investigator Det.-Sgt. Mike Mavity called the daring theft from an Air Canada cargo facility the single-largest gold heist in Canadian history and alleged two employees of the airline played key roles in pulling it off.
One of those employees, a 54-year-old man from Brampton who worked in the warehouse, has been arrested, while a Canada-wide arrest warrant has been issued for the other, a 31-year-old man also from Brampton. Mavity said he worked as a manager and led “a tour” of the cargo facility for police after the theft before he resigned from Air Canada last summer.
“They needed people inside Air Canada to facilitate this theft,” Mavity said.
The 6,600 bars of pure gold worth roughly $20 million CAD and about $2.5 million in various foreign currencies were stolen from an Air Canada cargo compound on April 17, 2023, shortly after arriving on a flight from Zurich.
Police have arrested multiple people and laid 19 charges in relation to a multimillion-dollar gold heist at Pearson airport last year. Peel police Det.-Sgt. Mike Mavity said the suspect gained access to an Air Canada storage facility using an airway bill — a document typically issued by a carrier with details on the shipment — for a shipment of seafood picked up a day prior.
A man driving a five-tonne delivery truck approached the compound and gained entry to the warehouse by presenting a legitimate airway bill — a document typically issued by a carrier with details on a shipment. The gold and cash was then loaded onto the truck and the driver exited the compound.
Police later discovered that the airway bill was actually a duplicate of a document for a shipment of seafood delivered a day prior, Mavity said. It was printed within the Air Canada facility, he added.
Using security video assembled from businesses and other sources, police pieced together some of the driver’s subsequent route before losing track of the truck in north Milton, Mavity said.
Investigators eventually identified the driver as Durante King-Mclean, 25, according to Mavity.
King-Mclean is currently in police custody in the U.S. after he was arrested during a September traffic stop in rural Pennsylvania, Mavity said. Police found 65 firearms in his rental car, including two that had been modified to be fully automatic and five untraceable “ghost guns” with no serial numbers, police said in a news release about the arrests.
Mavity and the ATF allege the guns were bound for Canada.
“We are alleging that some individuals who participated in this gold theft are also involved in aspects of firearms trafficking,” Mavity told reporters. Peel police have also issued an arrest warrant for King-Mclean, who is wanted in Canada for theft over $5,000 and the possession of proceeds of a crime.
Police say a task force investigating a multimillion-dollar gold heist at Pearson airport last year has confiscated at least 65 firearms intended for import into Canada in connection with the case. Peel police Chief Nishan Duraiappah said the $22.5M investigation has ramifications for community safety.
Over the last year, the task force executed 37 search warrants related to the heist investigation, Mavity said. They turned up $430,000 in cash, six pure gold bracelets worth about $89,000, as well as smelting pots, casts and moulds.
“We believe the gold has been melted down and reconstituted into local and international markets,” Mavity said.
Investigators also found two so-called debt lists, which are most commonly associated with drug trafficking investigations. One of the lists amounts to $10.23 million, while the other totals $9.94 million, according to Mavity.
“We believe these lists actually show where the money was distributed when the gold was sold by the suspects,” he said.