The suspicious texts on day of Toronto airport gold heist between Air Canada workers accused of pulling it off

On the morning of the Toronto airport gold heist, an Air Canada employee working at the cargo depot where the loot was about to be stolen received a text message from his supervisor’s personal phone: “Gooooood morning it is.”

Minutes later the employee replied saying he was “soo tired.. no sleep.”

“We looking good anyways for today,” came the manager’s replied.

Both men stand accused of being part of the insider conspiracy that pulled off one of the world’s largest gold heists, and their friendly chats prior to the theft — and a sharp falling out afterwards — is revealed in a trove of data extracted from a seized phone.

The Air Canada manager was named in court as Simran Preet Panesar, 34, who is considered a wanted fugitive in the heist case and believed to be in India. The employee was Parmpal Sidhu, a 56-year-old former Air Canada cargo warehouse employee who is on trial for the heist in a Brampton, Ont., court.

Sidhu has pleaded not guilty to theft and conspiracy.

Sidhu’s phone was seized by Peel Regional Police when he was arrested on April 5, 2024, almost a year after the high-profile heist. His home was searched as well.

Det.-Const. Edil Aden told court on Thursday that investigators extracted the phone’s contents using Cellebrite, a digital-forensics software tool.

“So it has text messages, phone calls, logs, images, videos. Their phone is put onto a screen for us,” Aden said. The printed data report was about two inches thick.

Aden said messages found on Sidhu’s phone had been sent and received through various tools, including text, encrypted apps and social media direct messaging.

One chat on Sidhu’s phone from a few months before the heist in April 2023 was with a jeweller about how to accurately test for nearly pure gold that had been melted without contamination.

Most of the messages that court heard about, however, were linked to Panesar, who might have been a co-accused at this same trial if he had returned to Canada. Panesar was the manager with Air Canada at the cargo warehouse at Pearson airport to whom Sidhu reported.

Sidhu and Panesar were friends outside of work. Their messages refer to going to the gym, having haircuts, getting coffee, sharing rides to work and laser hair removal recommendations.

Sidhu had five different means of contacting Panesar saved on his phone, including on encrypted communication apps Signal and WhatsApp.

The profile photos of Panesar saved on Sidhu’s phone look different from the widely circulated photo of Panesar in his police mug shot because he sometimes wears a hairpiece, court was told.

On the day of the heist, the two exchanged dozens of short messages, some highlighted to Judge Gordon Cudjoe as suspicious, or, in the words of Crown prosecutor Tyler Powell, “potentially relevant to this investigation.”

They included Panesar’s enthusiastic greetings for the day and a message from him a few hours after the heist.

“I think I’ll be going to India for days off just to get away few days,” the message from Panesar’s phone says. He said it was his wedding anniversary.

“Happy Anniversary,” Sidhu replies.

A few hours later, a message to Panesar’s number from Sidhu’s phone said: “Hey….gotta a call from my cuz who’s in peel. said he heard about a brings heist at cargo last night… lol. Hear anything?”

“No nothing like that happened,” was the reply.

Court heard little or no context to the messages. Presumably the reference to “brings heist” is a misspelling of Brink’s, the security transit company that was moving the gold from Switzerland to Toronto on an Air Canada flight for their client, TD Bank. It wasn’t until Brink’s guards arrived to collect the crate hours later that anyone realized it was gone.

Aden also testified about a screen recording found on Sidhu’s phone that appears to capture a thoroughly modern falling out between the two men: There is a screen shot of a message reading “Last chance” and then a sequence showing Sidhu’s phone blocking Panesar on Instagram.

Adel said police can’t say the screen recording was made by Sidhu, only that it was on Sidhu’s phone. It is not clear when the recording was made.

In a series of direct messages on Instagram dated Jan. 30, 2023, there is more evidence of acrimony.

“14,” a message from Sidhu’s account says.

“Yes I know” is the reply from Panesar’s.

“Bullshit,” says Sidhu’s.

“And I have news for you. We speak tomorrow. Cool?” says Panesar’s account.

“Talk to your lawyer. I urge you guys to do the right thing. U listen to me when u took the us cash… your full of shit.” In another message in the same string from Sidhu’s account, he mentions someone who was once a suspect in the heist and a misspelled version of Arsalan Chaudhary’s name.

In April, Chaudhary, 43, admitted to being the ringleader of the heist and was sentenced to four years in prison.

Aden was asked by Sidhu’s lawyer, Shale Wagman, if Sidhu’s fingerprints were found on the air waybill that was used to collect and steal the crate of gold and cash, worth more than $22 million. Court heard the waybill was printed from inside the Air Canada warehouse by someone logging in with Sidhu’s credentials.

She said she doesn’t think they were. She also agreed that no gold bars were found in the police search of Sidhu’s home.

Wagman asked her if the text massage saying “We looking good anyways for today” could mean almost anything. “It can mean anything, but the pertinence of it was that that’s the date of the heist,” Aden said. “It could be something work related,” Wagman asked. “It could be. It could be not,” she replied.

The trial continues Tuesday.

• Email: ahumphreys@postmedia.com | X: AD_Humphreys

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