OTTAWA — For Christmas, some people want a partridge in a pear tree or a ’54 convertible in light blue.
But what security company Brink’s wants this year is for Air Canada to refund the quarter million-dollar cost of a gold and silver bar the airline allegedly lost from a shipment around Christmas Day two years ago.
A new lawsuit filed by Brink’s in Federal Court this week reveals that just months before the notorious $24-million gold heist at Toronto’s Pearson Airport in April 2023, another similar item transported by Air Canada mysteriously disappeared.
The item was a single doré bar, a semi-pure alloy of mainly gold with some silver that is created at a mine and then transported to a refinery. Brink’s alleges the doré bar lost by Air Canada was worth over US$270,000, the same amount its now claiming from the airline in court.
Neither Brink’s nor Air Canada responded to questions from National Post about whether they suspect the disappearance of the precious bar was linked to the much more significant gold heist that would occur months later.
But unlike the trove of gold stolen through an alarmingly simple scheme in 2023 that police partly recovered earlier this year, the doré bar has yet to be found.
“Despite sweeps at origin and transit, the Missing Bar was never recovered by AC,” Brink’s alleged to the court.
According to the lawsuit, Brink’s was hired by a Swiss company Metalor to get a US$15.7 million shipment of 65 doré bars from Lima, Peru to Zurich, Switzerland.
The international secure transit company says it arranged for Air Canada to transport the bars via its “AC Secure” service from Lima to Toronto on Dec. 22, 2022, and then Toronto to Zurich the following day.
“Brink’s paid a supplementary fee with respect to the Shipment in order to ‘ensure’ that its valuable cargo (in this case, 65 dore bars) was shipped safely and securely,” reads the lawsuit.
That included ensuring that valuable cargo such as the bars did not “commingle” with general cargo, though that happened prior to the first flight in Lima, Brink’s alleged.
Then, the shipment was delayed when the second flight from Toronto to Zurich on Dec. 23 was cancelled, stalling the bars in Canada until another flight departed on Christmas morning.
It was only one hour and 25 minutes after the shipment arrived in Zurich on Dec. 25 that Brink’s was notified that one 13 kg doré bar had disappeared.
Did the bar disappear when it was allegedly mixed with general cargo in Lima? Or as it sat, delayed, at Pearson Airport? Or was it during the brief period in Zurich before it was declared missing? Or anywhere else during the trip?
In an emailed statement, Air Canada spokesperson Peter Fitzpatrick said the company is still trying to figure that out.
“The investigation as to what occurred, when the shipment was allegedly tampered with, and who was in possession of it at the time is ongoing,” he wrote Tuesday.
He also said the airline will defend itself “vigorously” against the lawsuit.
“We have not yet been served this claim. However, it appears it was filed to preserve the plaintiff’s rights due to the statute of limitations. In fact, the last contact we have had from the plaintiff related to this matter was in May 2023,” Fitzpatrick wrote.
In its lawsuit, Brink’s alleged it notified Air Canada in writing on Jan. 23, 2023, of the damages sustained due to Air Canada’s loss of the bar, but never heard back.
Brink’s argued in court documents that Air Canada should be on the hook for the entirety of the value of the lost bar instead of the usual, lower amount established by the Montreal Convention.
That’s because Brink’s said it made it clear to Air Canada that it was valuable and expensive cargo and paid more money to ensure safe passage.
For example, Brink’s says the shipment’s waybill and manifest described it as “*****VALUABLE CARGO*******” and detailed the cargo as “65 dore bars comprised of silver and gold weighing in excess of 700 kg” and worth US$15.7 million.
“In the circumstances, there can be no question that AC had actual knowledge of both the high-value nature and monetary value of the Shipment (including the Missing Bar) and, specifically, Brink’s special interest therein, at the time that it was handed over to AC for transportation,” the company wrote in its lawsuit.
Neither Brink’s, Metalor or the Greater Toronto Airports Authority responded to emailed queries by deadline.
National Post
Get more deep-dive National Post political coverage and analysis in your inbox with the Political Hack newsletter, where Ottawa bureau chief Stuart Thomson and political analyst Tasha Kheiriddin get at what’s really going on behind the scenes on Parliament Hill every Wednesday and Friday, exclusively for subscribers. Sign up here.
Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our daily newsletter, Posted, here.