Pearson Gold Heist Ringleader Says He Lost His Fortune After Kidnapping in Pakistan

The man who admitted to planning the biggest gold heist in Canadian history says he ended up with nothing. Arsalan Chaudhary, who pleaded guilty to orchestrating the $22-million theft from Toronto Pearson International Airport, took the witness stand in a Brampton courtroom on Tuesday and told the court that his share of the loot is gone — taken, he said, after he fled to Pakistan and was kidnapped.

Chaudhary was testifying as a reluctant witness in the trial of Parmpal Sidhu, a former Air Canada employee accused of acting as an inside man in the 2023 heist. His appearance was one of the trial's most anticipated moments.

Pearson gold heist ringleader testifies at Sidhu trial

According to CBC News, Chaudhary told the court on Tuesday that he was the man behind the gold heist, working alongside an inside man employed by Air Canada. The National Post reported that Chaudhary testified as a reluctant witness, and that he summed up his situation with a single line: he did everything for nothing. Chaudhary pleaded guilty earlier this year to theft over $5,000 and was sentenced in April to four years in prison, plus an order to pay back $22 million in restitution over 40 years. He had fled Canada after the theft, settled in Dubai, then returned in January and surrendered to Peel police at the airport where the gold was stolen.

His testimony matters because the Crown's case rests on the idea that the heist needed help from inside Air Canada cargo. Prosecutors allege Sidhu was one of the "inside men" with the knowledge and access to make the theft possible. Sidhu has pleaded not guilty to theft over $5,000 and conspiracy to commit an indictable offence, since the trial began on October 5 in Brampton.

What happened to the Pearson gold heist money in Pakistan

The most dramatic part of Chaudhary's testimony concerned what he says happened after he fled Canada. According to the National Post, Chaudhary told the court that after leaving the country, he travelled to Pakistan, where he said he was kidnapped by police, blindfolded and tortured until he told them where he had hidden his gold and cash. CBC News reported that Chaudhary said his money was taken during the kidnapping in Pakistan. Most of the stolen gold has never been recovered.

It is important to be clear about what this testimony is — and is not. His account of being kidnapped in Pakistan is his own version of events, given under oath. It has not been independently confirmed by police, and the court has heard no corroborating evidence about it so far. The defence will have the chance to test his claims under cross-examination, and the judge will decide how much weight to give them.

How the $22 million Pearson gold heist happened

To understand why Chaudhary's testimony drew so much attention, it helps to recall how brazen the original crime was. According to Peel Regional Police, 6,600 gold bars weighing more than 400 kilograms, along with foreign currency, were stolen from an Air Canada cargo facility at Pearson Airport on April 17, 2023. The shipment, valued at more than $20 million, had arrived from a refinery in Zurich, Switzerland, aboard an Air Canada flight.

Investigators allege that a suspect later presented warehouse employees with a fraudulent air waybill — paperwork that had originally belonged to a seafood shipment but had been altered with a handwritten number matching the gold consignment. The shipment was loaded onto a five-tonne truck and driven away. The entire process took under an hour, the court has heard. The Crown alleges the doctored waybill was printed at the cargo facility the day before the theft using Sidhu's employee profile, and that the driver was Durante King-Mclean, an Ontario man who later pleaded guilty in a separate U.S. case to conspiring to traffic firearms. Last month, the Crown withdrew charges against two other men accused in the case, jeweller Ali Raza and Amit Jalota. Another accused man, Archit Grover, is expected to face trial later this fall.

What happens next in the Pearson gold heist trial

Chaudhary's testimony is unlikely to be the last dramatic moment in Sidhu's trial. The defence is expected to probe his credibility closely, including why a convicted man who admitted to planning the heist should be believed about who else was involved. The Crown will argue his account fits the documentary evidence already before the court — the waybill, the employee profiles, the surveillance footage of the truck. For Sidhu, who maintains his innocence, the Crown must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he played the insider role alleged.

Whatever the verdict, the heist has already exposed how a single altered document could defeat security around a shipment worth tens of millions of dollars.

Sources

• CBC News Toronto — What the 'mastermind' of the $22M Pearson gold heist had to say in court
• The Canadian Press — Trial set to begin for man accused in massive gold heist at Toronto's Pearson airport
• Wings Magazine — Man on trial in Pearson airport gold heist provided fake shipping doc, Crown alleges