Former Air Canada manager to surrender in $20M gold heist case, his lawyer says

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A former Air Canada manager wanted on a Canada-wide warrant in relation to the $20-million gold heist from Toronto’s Pearson International Airport has agreed to turn himself in.

Simran Preet Panesar, 31, is wanted on charges including theft over $5,000 and conspiracy to commit an indictable offence, Peel Regional Police announced last month.

Panesar was an employee of Air Canada at the time of the theft in April 2023.

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Panesar’s lawyer, Greg Lafontaine, told CBC his client is “very confident in the Canadian justice system.”

“When this prosecution is over, he will have been absolved of any wrongdoing,” Lafontaine added, without saying where Panesar is.

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In April 2023, a shipping container filled with 6,600 variously sized bars of almost pure gold, weighing 400.19 kilograms, was stolen from an Air Canada cargo facility shortly after arriving on a flight to Toronto from Zurich, Switzerland.

In addition to the gold, which was valued at more than $20 million, the shipping container also contained various foreign currencies worth about $2.5 million. The contents were being delivered by Brink’s on behalf of two clients.

Panesar quit his job as a manager at the Air Canada cargo facility a few months after the heist and disappeared.

Police announced the charges against him and eight others in April.

Lafontaine said he contacted police and the Crown prosecutor to tell them Panesar planned to return voluntarily to Canada “in the next few weeks,” the CBC reported on Friday.

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“He is anxious to have an opportunity to demonstrate his absolute innocence,” Lafontaine said, adding that Panesar is “tidying up his affairs abroad in preparation of his return to Canada.”

A number of arrests have already been made in relation to the heist. Last month, Archit Grover, 36, was arrested at Pearson airport after stepping off a plane arriving from India.

Grover’s arrest followed the arrests of five men in Canada and one in the U.S. for their alleged roles in the crime.

Arsalan Chaudhary, a 42-year-old man of no fixed address, who is wanted for theft over $5,000, conspiracy to commit an indictable offence and two counts of possession of property obtained by crime, remains at large.

In April, police alleged that much of the gold had been melted down and transformed in a workshop in the basement of a Greater Toronto Area jewelry store.

The theft has been ranked as the sixth largest gold heist in the modern history of world crime.

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