Cargo estimated to be worth 20 million Canadian dollars (roughly $15 million) was stolen last week from Pearson International Airport, the busiest airport in Canada.
“On Monday, April 17, 2023, an aircraft arrived here at the airport in the early evening. As per normal procedure, the aircraft was unloaded and cargo was transported from the aircraft to a holding cargo facility,” Peel Regional Police Inspector Stephen Duivesteyn said, as reported by Fox News.
“Once this cargo was offloaded at a holding facility, subsequent to its arrival, this high-value container was removed by illegal means from the holding facility. This cargo was reported missing to the Peel Regional Police a short time later and an investigation has commenced,” Duivesteyn said.
The cargo contained gold and other “high-value” items, according to police. No arrests have been made, and the status of the cargo is unknown at this time.
Duivesteyn told reporters Thursday that it was not known yet whether or not the robbery was an organized effort.
Former Royal Canadian Mounted Police Deputy Commissioner Pierre-Yves Bourduas suspects that organized crime was involved.
“These individuals are obviously well organized, well structured, had information beforehand and had probably prepared and planned this way ahead of time. Everything was probably very much structured just to ensure success in their endeavour,” he said, per CBC News reporting.
The heist is reminiscent of the famous Lufthansa heist at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City — dramatized in the movie Goodfellas — which netted more than $5.8 million — $26 million when adjusted for inflation.
Stephen Schneider, a criminology professor at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, suspects that it was an inside job.
“It certainly sounds like something that was planned, premeditated and obviously required some level of organization not simply to access the gold but to be able to remove it from the airport,” Schneider told Global News.
The Greater Toronto Airports Authority (GTAA) added a small caveat to news of the theft.
“The GTAA wishes to clarify that thieves accessed the public side of a warehouse that is leased to a third party, outside of our primary security line,” the GTAA said in a statement. “This did not involve access to Toronto Pearson itself and did not pose a threat to passengers or GTAA staff.”