Last week, Toronto's Pearson District Police Department announced that the Pearson Airport gold robbery had been solved, but only 900,000 of the 20 million worth of gold had been recovered, and 95% of the stolen gold was estimated to never be recovered, because the gold had long since melted down in the basement of a local jewelry store.
Police said most, but not all, of the 400 kilograms of near-pure gold bars stolen in the Toronto airport gold robbery were melted down into jewellery in the basement workshop of a local jewelry store.
In the course of their investigation, Peel police found equipment in a local jewellery store that turned molten gold into gold ornaments, allegedly converting most of the $20 million worth of stolen gold into jewellery gold jewellery.
Inside the basement forge, police found smelting equipment used to turn molten gold into slender strips, as well as another machine that could shape slender strips of metal into bracelets, which included oxyacetylene torches, crucibles, metal tongs, and molds.
The equipment was seized by investigators from Peel District Police's "Project 24K" Special Investigations Unit, which last Wednesday marked the anniversary of the theft of gold from an Air Canada cargo warehouse, with police announcing the robbery solved, arresting and prosecuting six suspects.
The 400 kilograms of stolen 99.99% gold were originally engraved with serial numbers and could be traced.
Investigator Sergeant Mike Mavity of the Special Investigations Unit said investigators believe the devices were used to turn trackable, serial-numbered 99.99% pure gold bars into untraceable jewelry.
The jewelry store is located in the Greater Toronto Area.
"We believe a lot of gold, but not all of it, was melted there, and I can't go into detail right now why we believe that, but I can say that it came through our investigation," Sheriff Mavetti said. ”
Mavetti also confirmed that the driver who came to collect the gold removed the glove on his left hand during the transaction and left fingerprints on the documents used to assist in the fraudulent pick-up.
"Yes, through fingerprint checks, and with the support of additional police investigative techniques, we were sure that he was the driver," he said.
Allegedly, these smelting and jewelry equipment were used to make gold bracelets that looked like cheap bracelets but were worth a lot of money because they were almost pure gold.
Police found six of the bracelets, valued at about $90,000.
The bracelets seized by the police were not found at the jewelry store foundry, but Mavetti believes they were made there. This is the only missing gold section found so far.
In December 2023, Quebec police seized large quantities of gold and $500,000 in cash when investigating black gun smuggling, which were reported at the time to be linked to the Toronto airport gold robbery.
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If most of the stolen gold had been smelted in that underground workshop in the Greater Toronto Area, there would have been a lot of bracelets or other things being transferred, and it would have taken a lot of time to smelt that much gold on a small scale.
If the police's judgment is correct, then it will be difficult to recover the gold.
"According to industry experts, once you melt it, there's no DNA and it's hard to trace back to gold bars. ”
"We believe that some of the gold may have entered overseas markets as gold trading hubs, such as making bracelets that we found, some of which have been reintegrated into the local market," Sheriff Maviti said.
The trick of the crooks is to disguise the source of the gold in order to resell it to the legitimate market, where the gold is melted down, converted into jewelry and sold again and again, eventually becoming wedding rings, investment coins, artwork, dental fillings, cell phones and other electronics, and more gold bars for others to keep.
Joanne Lebert, executive director of IMPACT, said that illegal gold has multiple sources that go into refineries, and that recovered gold can be old jewelry, old coins or any other gold thrown into the furnace with it, including stolen gold, which is often used to cover up the origin of illegal gold to help sell it to refiners who turn a blind eye to its undesirable provenance.
"It seems to be a well-organized group. They have a clear plan for the robbery, so they will also have a plan to get rid of the stolen gold," he said of the Toronto Pearson Airport gold robbery.
"They've probably reinvented this stolen gold and found some way to get it to another country, I guess that place is Dubai, where there's very lax regulation of imports. A large amount of gold has recently been shipped to Dubai.
They may need some pocket money at the same time before the gold is shipped to Dubai.
"They may also resell some of them locally," Bolton said.
"Maybe they need pocket money at the same time before they can ship the gold to Dubai and send the wire transfer to a third country so they can get the money. This can take a few months, and in the meantime they may need some funding. ”
Miami and South Florida have been hotspots for illegal gold for years, he said.
The Toronto gold case has a Florida nexus: after the robbery, the truck driver who took the gold from the warehouse stayed at an Airbnb hotel in Florida and allegedly bought a batch of handguns with some of the proceeds of the stolen gold and smuggled them back to Canada.
However, Sheriff Mavetti said investigators do not believe the stolen gold was diverted to Miami.
Swiss precious metals refinery Valcambi SA and Swiss retail bank Raiffeisen Schweiz have contracted Delaware-based Brink's to transport around 400 kilograms of gold and $1.95 million in banknotes, respectively, from Zurich to Toronto.
Brink's booked a flight check on AC881 using AC Secure, a special service for handling valuable cargo.
The stolen container, which was filled with 6,600 gold bars of almost pure gold of different sizes, weighing 400.19 kilograms, arrived by plane from Switzerland and was worth about $20 million at the time, but the price of gold has been rising recently, and today, the gold is worth more than $30 million.
The flight landed at Pearson Airport around 4 p.m. on April 17, and police said the cargo was packed in a container about 5 to 6 square feet in size and stored at the airport's Air Canada bonded warehouse about two hours later.
Around 6:32 p.m., "an unidentified person entered AC's cargo storage facility. ”
Allegedly, the person presented "fraudulent false waybills" to Air Canada staff, who issued them gold and banknotes.
Police said the conspiracy was allegedly carried out by insiders with the help of two Air Canada employees at the warehouse.
Simran Preet Panesar, 31, from Brampton, was an Air Canada employee at the time of the theft but resigned a few months after the theft, he is wanted and considered a fugitive.
Parmpal Sidhu, 54, is from Abton and is listed as an Air Canada employee. Air Canada said he had been suspended following his arrest.
The role of the two airline employees in the robbery has not been revealed, but he said they were neither forklift drivers nor employees who received fraudulent air freight bills from the drivers.
Brink's is seeking a total of $23.8 million in compensation from Air Canada, including $21.1 million in compensation for 400 kilograms of missing gold and $2.7 million in damages.