Over 6,500 gold bars stolen last year from an airport in Canada are most likely overseas, police have said. The gold, in the form of serialised bars, worth over 20 million Canadian dollars, was stolen from Pearson International Airport in Toronto last April.
It is considered the biggest gold heist in the country's history. The Peel Regional Police believes the gold was quickly smuggled to the Middle East or South Asia region.
"We believe a large portion has gone overseas to markets that are flush with gold," lead investigator Det. Sgt. Mike Mavity told members of the Peel Police Service Board in a meeting on June 21, according to CBC News.
Detective Mavity added, "That would be Dubai, or India, where you can take gold with serial numbers on it, and they will still honour it and melt it down…. And we believe that happened very shortly after the incident."
The official further acknowledged that the gold bars were worth millions more at the time of the heist than what they had repeatedly stated.
"Whether it's CA$20 million or CA$34 million might be a mitigating factor come sentencing, but it doesn't in my opinion change a lot," said the detective.
Talking about claims that all of this gold was melted down in the basement of a Mississauga-based jewellery store, another official added, "We believe a small quantity was melted at that jewellery shop."
Detective Mavity added, "At no point were we ever alleging that 400 kilograms of gold were melted down in a small jewellery shop by hand. That wasn't the message that we were trying to relay."
Further, officials have said that nine people have been arrested in connection with the case. Among the suspects include a jewellery store owner, a former Air Canada manager as well as a warehouse employee.
According to Fox News, the suspects are believed to have used a completed bill for a seafood pick-up to forge the paperwork that was further provided to a warehouse attendant. Only CA dollar 90,000 have been recovered from the heist, it added.