Toronto’s Pearson airport was the scene of a “very rare” theft of gold bars worth $20 million on Monday. The mystery hovers over the method used by the criminals to steal this enormous quantity of precious metal without being spotted.
Peel Police Inspector Stephen Duivesteyn confirmed on Thursday that a crate containing gold ‘and other items’ worth ‘just over $20 million’ went missing from the airport authority radar earlier this week. This box “contained gold, but not exclusively. It contained other items of monetary value,” he said in a press scrum.
The plane carrying the loot did indeed land in Toronto on Monday, then was unloaded of its precious cargo according to normal procedure, said the inspector. The container was subsequently stolen from the “airport waiting facilities” by “illegal means”.
Inspector Duivesteyn was stingy with comments due to the ongoing investigation. He could not trace a link between this theft and organized crime or specify which airline was involved. Such disappearances are “very rare”, he insisted. “This is an isolated event.”
“We are on the third day [de l’enquête]. Our goal right now is to solve this theft,” he said. “I cannot give exact details. […] For the public worried about flying away, there should be no problem. We do not see this as a matter of public safety. »
“We’re going to look at this flight from all angles,” he continued. “For me to say it was a professional flight… I would hesitate to say such a thing. »
“It will take our best investigators” to solve this crime, he concluded before ending the press briefing. No arrests have been made in this case.
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