After pulling off the largest gold heist in Canadian history — a $24-million haul stolen from Pearson airport — Arsalan Chaudhary took a portion of the spoils for himself and then distributed the profits to names on his handwritten “debt list,” a Brampton court heard on Monday.
Reading from an agreed statement of facts, Crown attorney Jelena Vlacic detailed the money list police found in Chaudhary’s apartment — a $10.3-million ledger he’d penned to track the distribution of profits from the melted gold.
The count included a $5-million payout to an unidentified group; “$1M” to the “boss”; $200,000 for “Tommy”; $150,000 to a “driver”; $80,000 for a “boat”; $250,000 for a “condo” and “40K” to “parents,” the court heard.
In a nearly empty courtroom on Monday, 44-year-old Chaudhary admitted to allocating some of those profits after orchestrating the April 17, 2023, theft of 400 kilograms of gold from an Air Canada cargo facility outside of Pearson airport.
“He acknowledges creating a debt list for the purpose of having the proceeds of this theft distributed and, ultimately, distributing some of those profits,” Vlacic said.
The Mississauga man, described by the Crown as a “key organizer” of the scheme, is one of nine people charged or wanted in connection with the heist. Two of them, including a former Air Canada employee, remain outstanding, according to Peel Regional Police.
In court, he stood up from the prisoner’s box with a quiet confidence as he pleaded guilty to theft over $5,000, waiving his right to a trial.
The heist
On a Monday evening in April, the wheels were put in motion.
At 6:30 p.m., the driver of a white truck arrived at an Air Canada warehouse across from Pearson airport and presented a doctored waybill for a frozen seafood shipment, which had been picked up the day before, according to an agreed statement of facts.
With that fake document, the driver managed to collect a cargo container of 6,600 gold bars — each one 99.9 per cent pure — and millions in foreign cash. The shipment had come from Zurich, Switzerland, and the gold was valued at $22.5 million, Vlacic noted.
Clockwise left from right, seven of the accused in the Pearson gold heist: Prasath Paramalingam, Parmpal Sidhu, Durante King-Mclean, Archit Grover, Arsalan Chaudhary, Amit Jalota, Ali Raza.
Kelly Skjerven Toronto Star / Supplied photos
Citing time stamps from video surveillance, the Crown attorney detailed the driver’s route from the storage bay to the meetup point near Milton.
Chaudhary, meanwhile, had been stationed in Mississauga five kilometres away from the cargo warehouse. After the gold was secured, Vlacic said he travelled “nearly in tandem” with the driver to the drop-off point. Sometime after 10 p.m., he arrived and “took possession of some of the gold.”
The day of the heist, court heard Chaudhary had made dozens of calls to other co-conspirators in the heist — including 16 to the driver alone.
The aftermath
According to the agreed statement of facts, Chaudhary knew the gold would have to be melted for it to have monetary value, so he co-ordinated a plan with some of his co-accused.
In the days after the heist, Chaudhary texted his associate — an Air Canada employee — saying there was “too much heat” to get the gold melted, and they were “gonna have to wait.”
Melting gold is “a process,” he said, according to the statement read in court.
“I heard they call you 2 chains of T-Dot,” the associate replied, referring to the popular nickname for Toronto.
“Lmao, bro. I wish I had it,” Chaudhary said. “Loved to be called 2 chains.”
Court heard the melting and sale of the gold took place in the basement of a Mississauga jewelry store weeks later. “They took all of it,” an associate allegedly messaged Chaudhary on June 9, 2023. “They got horny when they see it hahahah.”
That same associate later wrote: “Bro. This was sick,” to which Chaudhary replied, “can’t wait to see.”
In the end, police said they only recovered about $90,000 of the stolen gold.
The distribution
After the theft, Vlacic said the getaway driver, Durante King-McLean, fled to the U.S. and stayed at a Airbnb booked in the name of Chaudhary’s brother.
While Chaudhary admits to helping protect King-McLean from authorities, the Crown attorney said he wanted to make clear his brother “had absolutely no idea about the theft itself and the purpose of booking the Airbnb.”
In early September 2023, police arrested King-McLean during a traffic stop near Harrisburg, Penn., and found 65 handguns in his rental vehicle.
(Investigators previously claimed the stolen Pearson gold was used to purchase the illegal firearms destined for Canada.)
After his arrest, Vlacic said Chaudhary advised another co-accused — King-McLean’s former landlord — to tell King-McLean: “Make sure he knows I got him.”
“Tell him to keep quiet, or lawyer can’t do his job,” Chaudhary added.
According to the facts presented in court, Chaudhary had made arrangements to secure $25,000 for King-McLean’s lawyer because he wanted to ensure “King-McLean would not speak about his knowledge of the gold theft.”
A few weeks after the driver’s arrest, Peel police executed a search warrant at Chaudhary’s Mississauga home, where they seized $154,000 in cash, large quantities of foreign currency and his handwritten “debt list,” the court heard.
Months later, in December 2023, the Crown said Chaudhary flew to Dubai; he told his family he’d stay with a cousin and was looking for work there. The following April, Peel police issued a warrant for his arrest.
Then, in early January, Chaudhary returned to Canada to face charges of theft, conspiracy to commit an indictable offence and two counts of possession of property obtained by crime.
The proposed sentence
At Monday’s plea hearing, court heard Chaudhary, a Canadian citizen born in Pakistan, dropped out of high school shortly after arriving in Canada. He’s worked various full-time jobs since then, including as a dump truck driver, a mover and in warehouses. He also opened a restaurant business with his brother, but it shut down during the pandemic, his lawyer, Harval Bassi, told the court.
Chaudhary has a criminal record for relatively minor offences, has never served time in jail and is very close to his family, Bassi said.
“Your Honour, selfishly, Mr. Chaudhary could have waited to see what happened with the other individuals (charged in the case),” the lawyer said.
“He could have waited to see what the evidence was against the others.” Instead, Bassi said his client voluntarily surrendered.
The Crown requested a seven-year sentence, while the defence sought a four-year prison term, citing the harsh conditions his client has faced at Maplehurst Correctional Complex. Both asked to deduct the 71 days Chaudhary served in pre-sentence custody, and with additional enhanced credit.
The Crown and defence agreed the early guilty plea and his family support were significant mitigating factors, though Vlacic urged the judge to balance those with Chaudhary’s “very high” moral culpability.
“This was from a smash and grab, and perhaps that’s why it has captured people’s imaginations,” she said, effectively describing Chaudhary as the principal planner of the heist. “The level of organization is significant.”
Bassi said he didn’t dispute his client’s role or the crime itself, but disagreed with the Crown’s characterization of the operation as highly sophisticated.
“It’s sophisticated by virtue of the number of people involved, but this isn’t months and months of planning,” he said. “This, in some ways, is a crime of opportunity.”
Ontario Court of Justice Shannon McPherson is expected to deliver her decision next month.