A man who admitted his role in the Toronto Pearson airport gold heist is telling the trial for another man accused in the case that recalling his alleged abduction in Pakistan on the stand is leaving him traumatized.
Arsalan Chaudhary was sentenced this spring to four years in prison after pleading guilty to theft over $5,000, and he was given 40 years to pay back $22 million in restitution.
He took the stand Tuesday in the Brampton, Ont., trial of Parmpal Sidhu, who has pleaded not guilty to charges of theft over $5,000 and conspiracy to commit an indictable offence in the 2023 heist.
Chaudhary says today he couldn’t sleep last night after testifying that he was kidnapped and abused in Pakistan by people who knew he had stolen gold and cash.
He says he has been kept at Maplehurst Correctional Complex for about three weeks, where he didn’t receive his prescribed medications including melatonin and vitamins.
Chaudhary told the court Tuesday that he’d planned the heist with another man who is still wanted by authorities, and he ended up taking 30 per cent of boxes full of one-ounce gold bars.
Prosecutors allege that Sidhu, an Air Canada employee at the time, provided a doctored waybill that allowed another man to pick up more than $22 million in gold and currency from a Pearson airport cargo bay.
Peel regional police have said 6,600 gold bars weighing more than 400 kilograms were stolen from the airport on April 17, 2023, after the shipment arrived from Switzerland.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 14, 2026.
