Air Canada security camera could have caught insider in Toronto airport gold heist but wasn't working that day

A crucial surveillance camera inside an Air Canada cargo warehouse was not working the day a crate carrying more than $22.5 million in almost pure gold and cash was stolen, a security slip hiding the identity of an airline insider who helped pull off the gold heist, court heard.

Parmpal Sidhu, a 56-year-old former Air Canada cargo warehouse employee, is accused of using his inside access to print off an official Air Canada air waybill that was used by a truck driver to collect the high-value crate stolen in the Toronto airport gold heist in 2023.

Sidhu has pleaded not guilty to theft and conspiracy and his ongoing trial in Ontario Superior Court in Brampton, Ont., featured internal Air Canada security video showing the crate being moved around the airline’s large cargo facility at Pearson airport, loaded onto a truck, and driven off.

Nowhere on the video footage, however, was anyone seen printing or collecting the waybill that was the key to releasing the crate to a gold heist gang instead of to Brink’s security guards, who arrived later to pick it up for a Toronto bank but learned it was nowhere to be found.

The court has heard that Sidhu’s employee ID number was used to access an Air Canada printer within the building to print it, but has also heard that airline cargo employees had woeful computer hygiene and routinely swapped and shared login credentials.

A Peel Regional Police detective, testifying on the witness stand for a second day Wednesday, revealed why the identity of who took the air waybill off the printer and got it into hands of the driver is in any doubt.

Sidhu’s lawyer, Shale Wagman, asked Det. Sarah Angevine about the police evidence in the case against Sidhu.

“There was no fingerprint of Mr. Sidhu on the air waybill,” Wagman asked.

“Correct,” replied Angevine.

“Do they have cameras at Air Canada cargo?”

“They do.”

“Was that looked at? Was that searched, the surveillance cameras?”

“I do recall that cameras in the area of where that printer was, that printed the waybill, was inoperable on that date,” she said. “Whoever picked it up from the printer was not captured on video.”

Court was not told how long that camera had been inoperable, how it failed, or who might know the status of internal security video monitoring.

Angevine was asked by Wagman about phone contact between Sidhu and another accused in the gold heist who was also an Air Canada employee at the time and was Sidhu’s manager, a man named Simran Preet Panesar.

Court heard earlier there was frequent contact between the phones registered to the two men, both texting and talking. Sidhu had more contact with Panesar leading up to the heist than he did with his wife, court heard.

Wagman suggested it wasn’t strange or odd for an employee and a boss to text and talk more with each other than with a spouse.

“Based on my experience and my relationship,” Angevine said, “I would say it’s a little odd, but maybe not for everybody.” She agreed, though, that it is not strange for a boss and employee to socialize outside work.

Sidhu was working a double shift on the day of the heist, from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m.

He was on a dinner break at the time the gold was stolen, court heard.

The airplane carrying the gold shipment from Zurich, Switzerland, arrived shortly before 4 p.m., after a nine-hour flight on April 17, 2023. The driver arrived to pick it up around 6:30 p.m., had it loaded onto the truck and left the cargo facility at 7:30 p.m.

Angevine said the phones of the two were in contact multiple times throughout the day, starting early in the morning at 5:35 and continued periodically until 9:44 p.m.

Wagman asked about Sidhu being arrested in January 2024 and charged with mischief after allegedly damaging the front door of someone not accused in the gold heist. Wagman asked the detective if the wiretaps heard in court on Tuesday, appearing to show Sidhu angrily trying to get money and complaining of needing a lawyer, could have related to the mischief charge rather than the gold heist.

“Sure. It could be anything,” she said.

Late Wednesday, Justice Gordon Cudjoe delivered his ruling on how to deal with the dramatic but problematic testimony from Arsalan Chaudhary, an admitted mastermind of the gold heist plot.

Chaudhary was the Crown’s star witness at Sidhu’s trial and the only witness with direct, first-hand knowledge of the plotting. He previously pleaded guilty and was brought to court from prison, where he is serving a four-year sentence.

During three days of frustrating testimony , he said he no longer remembers most of the evidence he provided three months ago and in the statement of facts he agreed to at his own guilty plea. He said he had PTSD from his ordeal, including being kidnapped in Pakistan and tortured into giving up his loot to save his life, and from poor treatment in jail prior to being ordered to testify at Sidhu’s trial.

“The Crown is highly skeptical,” prosecutor Tyler Powell said of Chaudhary’s claims that trauma and lack of sleep had eroded his memory on key information implicating others.

Prosecutors asked the judge to rely on Chaudhary’s previous statements and not just on his frail account from the stand, what courts call a KGB application.

Sidhu’s lawyers argued that Chaudhary’s prior statements were self-serving and against Sidhu’s interest but in favour of heist suspects who Chaudhary was close to, including a friend and his brother, “who he wanted to make sure was protected when he made his plea,” Cudjoe said in his ruling.

Charges against the friend, Amit Jalota, and his brother, Ammad Chaudhary, were dropped after Chaudhary’s evidence.

“He did not necessarily recant. He just refused to remember or to try to remember,” Cudjoe said of Chaudhary’s latest testimony.

Cudjoe ruled that some information from Chaudhary’s past statements was admissible at Sidhu’s trial — including that Chaudhary said he spoke with Sidhu three times on the day of the heist — because it was given by Chaudhary as both direct testimony at a discovery hearing prior to Sidhu’s trial and in the agreed statement of facts.

However, evidence in the agreed facts at Chaudhary’s guilty plea hearing of text messages between Chaudhary and Sidhu about melting gold, which were found on Chaudhary’s phone but not recovered from Sidhu’s phone, was too “problematic.”

“At this stage, I’m not determining what weight I will give to this evidence. I am only determining if it is safe to consider this evidence and still afford the accused a fair trial,” Cudjoe said.

Crown prosecutor Jelena Vlacic said there were no more witnesses being called in the government’s case. Wagman said the defence is not calling any witnesses. The Crown and defence will submit written closing submissions and court will reconvene next month.

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

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