Air Canada's woeful security at cargo warehouse

A 2023 theft at Air Canada’s Cargo West facility at Toronto Pearson saw a crate containing roughly 400 kilograms of nearly pure gold and about $2.5 million in currency - worth about $22 million - taken soon after a flight from Switzerland. The shipment was systematically disguised and misrouted so it looked like ordinary cargo: someone removed the VAL designation that flags valuables for locked, guarded storage until armed Brink’s guards arrived, a second system change instructed workers not to separate contents bound for different destinations, and a handwritten alteration on the waybill changed the internal pickup location. With those changes in place, a driver who presented altered paperwork was handed the crate and drove off, allegedly posing as a buyer collecting salmon.

Trial testimony made clear how those alterations were possible. An Air Canada manager testified her login credentials were used to delete the VAL flag even though she was not on duty, and another manager’s credentials were used to prevent a breakdown of the crate; employees commonly shared logins, worked at shared computers, and left sessions open. Witnesses described lax internal controls and routine convenience-driven access that allowed critical shipment data to be changed. Security has reportedly been tightened since, but the evidence presented paints a picture of systemic vulnerability exploited to carry out the largest gold heist in Canada.