How do you get rid of $20M in gold?

Untraceable once melted, most of the bars are gone for good, experts say

It’s something out of a crime thriller: organized criminals, $20 million worth of stolen gold and a yearlong probe to crack the case.

Only, in this investigation, the police are not quite finished.

Peel Regional police held a press conference Wednesday announcing the results of Project 24k, an investigation into the largest gold heist in Canadian history.

Two Air Canada employees and a Toronto jewelry store owner are among the nine people facing charges in the theft of nearly $24 million in gold and cash from a storage unit at Pearson International Airport, police said on the first anniversary of the heist. In all, six have been arrested; three others have outstanding warrants.

Thieves made off with 6,600 almost entirely pure gold bars valued at $20 million — but police recovered only $90,000 worth of gold, in the form of “six crudely made gold bracelets.” The rest, experts say, may never be found.

Lou Bredusco, co-owner of Toronto jewelry appraiser Harold Weinstein Ltd., said the gold bars would likely have had serial numbers to track their movement — but once melted, those are gone forever.

That means that even if police find some gold, it’s likely “no one can prove that it was the actual gold stolen from the airport,” he said.

The fact pure gold can be endlessly melted and reshaped means criminals can sell it off in bits or large pieces. And because it cannot be tracked, “people are willing to buy into that,” said Donna Hawrelko, president of the Canadian Gemmological Association.

“The chances of recovering it are virtually nil.”

In addition to the recovered bracelets, Peel police say they seized smelting equipment and about $434,000 in Canadian currency. Bredusco said those behind the heist would need the expertise and access to the suitable facility to melt more than 6,000 gold bars, which can take a “long time.”

“For somebody to be able to melt down a brick of gold, you have to have the capabilities to do that,” added Hawrelko.

“It’s not easily done.” A criminology professor at the University of Essex in England, Anna Sergi, said gold is so untraceable in part because the industry works on cash transactions, and cash makes it possible for transactions to go “unnoticed.”

A lack of regulation surrounds a global trade with few global rules, where trades can be done anonymously, “which means that it’s heaven for criminal groups who want to buy gold to launder cash,” Sergi said by email.

She noted that gold is also very durable, and its value has remained relatively stable even when other prices are fluctuating. (As of Wednesday afternoon, gold was trading at more than $2,300 (U.S.) an ounce.)

Who might buy hot gold? More people than you might think, Hawrelko said.

If criminals go to buyers with gold bars bearing crudely scuffed serial numbers, that will raise questions. “Unless you have the facilities to melt it down, then you’ve got to be careful to whom you sell it,” she said.

But “criminals are going to sell at a discount” and if they melt the gold down to sell bit-by-bit, she said, “they will buy it.”

“You can take it to places like pawn shops. People will buy it.”

Police recovered six “crudely made” bracelets — does that mean people who bought jewelry in the GTA this past year could be wearing stolen gold?

It’s a “possibility,” said Bredusco. Or the criminals could still be “sitting on it somewhere. Who knows.”

Hawrelko agrees, noting the bracelets easily could have ended up at a pawn shop or jewelry store.

Still, she cautioned against “putting yourself in the mind of a criminal.”

“Some of the bizarre things they come up with is just unfortunate,” she said, adding that the theft of that much gold has resulted in a shortage felt by everyone else — “so we all end up paying for it.”

For somebody to be able to melt down a brick of gold, you have to have the capabilities to do that. It’s not easily done.

DONNA HAWRELKO PRESIDENT OF THE CANADIAN GEMMOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION