9 facing charges in what police in Canada say is the biggest gold theft in the country’s history

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TORONTO, April 18, (AP): Police said nine people are facing charges in what authorities are calling the biggest gold theft in Canadian history from Toronto’s Pearson International airport a year ago.
Peel Regional Police said Wednesday that 6,600 gold bars worth more than 20 million Canadian dollars ($14.5 million), and CA$2.5 million ($1.8 million) in foreign currencies were stolen. The gold was melted down and used to purchase illegal firearms, police said.
Those charged include an Air Canada warehouse employee and a former Air Canada manager who gave police a tour of cargo of the facility after the theft. A jewelry store owner is also charged.
“This story is a sensational one and which probably, we jokingly say, belongs in a Netflix series,” Peel Regional Chief Nishan Duraiappah said.
Peel Regional Detective Sgt. Mike Mavity said the gold bars, weighing 419 kilograms (923 pounds), and foreign currency, ordered from a refinery in Zurich, Switzerland, were transported in the haul of an Air Canada flight on April 17 last year.
He said that late afternoon a truck driver arrived at the airline’s cargo warehouse with a fraudulent bill that was provided to an airline warehouse attendant.
Mavity said a bill for seafood that was picked up the day before was used to pick up the gold. The duplicate bill was printed off at the Air Canada warehouse, he said.
“They needed people within Air Canada to facilitate this theft,” Mavity said in front of the truck police say was used in the theft.
Mavity said police are searching for the Air Canada manager who gave police a tour of the facility in the days after the theft. He said that manager left his job last summer and said they have an idea of where he is.
Mavity said some of the suspects were known to police and some were not. He said they seized six crudely made bracelets made of gold.

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