MANDEL: Toronto airport gold heist wiretaps detail anxious time for co-accused

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One of the co-accused in the Pearson gold heist was panicking on the phone.

The walls were closing in. Two months after the record theft of $22 million in gold bars and cash from the Air Canada cargo warehouse on April 17, 2023, Peel Regional Police’s Project 24K was granted the judicial go-ahead to wiretap a number of suspects — including Air Canada employee Parmpal Sidhu.

Investigators had placed a tap on his phone and a probe in his Nissan Rogue; the police wire room was listening in to his increasingly frantic conversations as he demanded his “cut.”

Sidhu has pleaded not guilty to theft and conspiracy at his judge-alone trial in Brampton before Superior Court Justice Gordon Cudjoe.

In a January 2024 intercept, he said “the lady” promised he was still going to see his share.

“She goes, ‘You’re going to get a lot. You will and not (in) a very long time.’ She’s talking like March. She goes, ‘But it’s not going to be what you were expecting. But it’s still going to be good. Everything will be fine.”

But she also told him, “it’s a very dangerous time,” and he had to be patient and chill, Sidhu is heard saying.

Sidhu complained on a wiretap that he “took care of my guys” right at the beginning, but the person who promised to “sort it out” with him has since “vanished.”

A key player is alleged to be former Air Canada cargo manager Simran Preet Panesar, who is wanted by authorities and believed to be in India.

On the day of the theft, Det. Sarah Angevine said an examination of Sidhu’s phone showed there were 22 texts or calls from Panesar and 14 from Sidhu to Panesar. She also said Panesar was Sidhu’s top contact, with more exchanges with him than with his wife.

Is Panesar the man he complained had disappeared? Or heist mastermind Arsalan Chaudhary who had also fled the country?

“Everybody’s gone,” he said on the intercept, “and I’m stuck here.” Meanwhile, he was left “getting the f—-ing heat.”

In February, Sidhu was talking with someone and seemed desperate — and angry.

“I am telling you I am in a hole and I am going to have to look after myself,” he warned. His credit cards were maxxed out and he needed cash now.

“If I lose my cut, then Grove is going to lose his, too,” he vowed.

The Peel officer explained that “Grove” is his co-accused Archit Grover, who faces a trial later this year.

“I’m in a jam now,” he said on a wiretap on Feb. 3, 2024. “Just give me 30-40 or 50 now. I’ll wait a year for the rest.”

In another call, Sidhu was even more stressed.

“I’m telling you, there’s a part of me that wants to be caught. I want to get it off my f—ing jacket. I have a tracker under my car. We’re making this stupid mistake. This is how we get f—ed up. I said it over and over and over and over again. It is unbelievable pressure. You can’t even imagine.”

Five days later, Sidhu sounded desperate.

“You said you have quite a few powerful people there,” he is heard telling someone on the phone. “Can somebody just go there and like spray the house, not hurt anybody, but spray like the car, the house, or something like that?”

The trial continues.

mmandel@postmedia.com

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