Air Canada ordered to pay $19K in lawsuit over 2023 Pearson gold heist
Posted Jan 25, 2025 10:20:23 AM.
Air Canada has been ordered to pay almost $19,000 as part of a lawsuit after $20 million in gold was stolen from Pearson Airport.
Security company Brink’s sued the airline after a shipment of 6,600 gold bars from Zurich, Switzerland, was stolen on April 17, 2023, when someone presented a forged document to collect the goods from an Air Canada holding facility at the airport.
In a lawsuit filed in June 2024 with the Federal Court of Canada, Brink’s argued it was due almost US$15 million after Air Canada failed to properly secure the cargo and properly examine and authenticate the document used when the goods were stolen. Brink’s said it made a “special declaration of interest” when it booked the cargo using the airline’s AC Secure, a service provided by the airline for the transportation of valuable cargo.
“By selecting a process which purportedly recognizes that some high-value items require unique handling, Brink’s conveyed its special interest in the Shipments,” it said in its submission.
Air Canada claimed the security company failed to declare the monetary value of the cargo on its waybill under the “Declared Value for Carriage.”
Following a hearing last November, the Federal Court of Canada ruled on January 20 that while the evidence confirmed that Brink’s did convey to Air Canada that what they were shipping was considered “valuable,” it did not provide the airline with the monetary value of the cargo.
“Brink’s did not establish that it made a special declaration of interest in delivery at destination for the Shipments. …Brink’s also did not establish that it paid a supplementary sum when it booked the transportation of the Shipments with Air Canada,” Justice Cecily Strickland wrote in her ruling.
Air Canada was ordered to pay 9,988 in Special Drawing Rights, a form of international money created by the International Monetary Fund, which exceeds $18,600 Canadian.
Nine people, including Air Canada employees, face almost two dozen charges in connection with the case, described as the largest gold heist in Canadian history and reportedly the sixth-largest in world crime history.
