Brink’s Sues Air Canada After $17 Million In Gold Bars & Cash Go Missing

Six months ago, $17.2 million in gold bars and cash disappeared from a warehouse at Toronto Pearson International Airport. While the case remains a mystery, a new lawsuit has given a glimpse of information about the robbery.

Peel Regional Police, responsible for the airport, announced in April that a container with valuable goods that had been unloaded from a plane and placed in a warehouse was gone. No other information was offered.

Brink’s, the armored car company that was hired to move the cash and gold from Switzerland to Canada, along with two of its subsidiaries, has filed a lawsuit against Air Canada, which transported and stored the container.

In the statement of claim filed to the Federal Court of Canada, Brink’s said the cash and gold were separate shipments but had traveled together. Brink’s, which was responsible for the shipments, is contractually obligated to cover any losses.

The cash, valued at $1.9 million, was sent by a Swiss bank to a currency exchange in Vancouver. The gold bars, valued at 13.6 million Swiss francs ($15.3 million), were in transit from a precious metal refinery in Switzerland to Toronto-Dominion Bank. The cash weighed 53 kilograms, and the gold bars weighed 400 kilograms.

In order to ensure security, Brink’s paid to send the shipment through AC Secure, Air Canada’s specialized service which offers enhanced security measures and prioritized transport of the cargo.

Air Canada Flight 881 from Zurich arrived a few minutes early in Toronto at 3:56 p.m. Within approximately 24 minutes, the gold and cash were unloaded from the plane, and by 5:50 p.m., they were stored in an Air Canada warehouse before customs inspection.

Roughly 40 minutes later, an “unidentified individual” entered the warehouse. Brink’s says that the person showed the warehouse Air Canada employees a waybill for “an unrelated shipment.”

Brink’s argues that employees didn’t check the waybill’s validity and released the cash and gold to the individual who then “absconded with the cargo,” and argues that Air Canada must now reimburse it the full cost of the gold and cash, due to the extra fees paid for the secure service.

Without providing any details, Brink’s accuses the airline of “failing to ensure that employee credentials are not susceptible to fraud and/or misuse,” and claims that Air Canada did not “verify the trustworthiness and proper training of all personnel and third parties who maintain access to high-value shipments on its behalf.”

Under international agreements on lost and stolen luggage/cargo, Brink’s would not be expected to recover as much as one percent of the lost $17.2 million.