Key figure in Pearson airport gold heist testifying at trial of another accused man

A man who admitted his role in the massive gold heist at Toronto’s Pearson airport says he took 30 per cent of the gold and started melting and selling it before travelling to Pakistan, where he claims he was kidnapped and abused to give it up.

Arsalan Chaudhary is testifying in the trial of Parmpal Sidhu, who has pleaded not guilty to charges of theft over $5,000 and conspiracy to commit an indictable offence in the 2023 heist.

Chaudhary told a Brampton, Ont., court today he planned the heist with Simran Preet Panesar, who is wanted by authorities, and they divided boxes full of one-ounce gold bars, adding that he took 30 per cent and Panesar took 70 per cent of the boxes.

He says he took the gold to a condo in the Greater Toronto Area and started melting it for sale, acquiring $200,000 to $300,000 in cash, and he travelled to Mexico and Portugal before he ended up in Pakistan.

Chaudhary testified that a group of people in police uniforms abducted him in Pakistan and abused him, so he was forced to let people they worked with take the remaining gold from his condo unit in Canada and take his cash from his cousin’s house in Pakistan.

He says the kidnappers let him go and he went to Dubai, where he stayed until he came back to Canada on Jan. 12.

Chaudhary was sentenced this spring to four years in prison after pleading guilty to theft over $5,000, and he was given 40 years to pay back $22 million in restitution.

Prosecutors allege that Sidhu, an Air Canada employee at the time, provided a doctored waybill that allowed another man to pick up more than $22 million in gold and currency from a Pearson airport cargo bay in what investigators have called one of the largest gold heists in Canadian history.

Peel regional police have said 6,600 gold bars weighing more than 400 kilograms were stolen from the airport on April 17, 2023.