Long gone silver remains missing as companies lock swords over stolen booty

Nearly three years have passed since a cartage company left a shipping container holding more than $10 million US worth of silver in the parking lot of a run-down warehouse in Lasalle, Que.

A snapshot of the moment was recorded for posterity and — presumably — proof. The grainy photograph is now part of a voluminous court file related to what happened next.

This is an unusual story, but not completely unpredictable: the container and its contents vanished.

And while traces of the long gone silver have turned up in B.C. and Massachusetts, the bulk of the booty remains missing as a legal battle plays out over who exactly bears responsibility.

"This case has all the elements of an Agatha Christie whodunit," Federal Court case management Judge Kevin Aalto wrote in a ruling rejecting a bid to stay the proceedings earlier this year.

"A valuable stolen cargo, a secure location, multiple possible suspects, an unknown perpetrator, and a trucking company that was given the pick-up code with instructions to deliver the cargo to a location unknown to any of the parties."

Another Federal Court judge upheld Aalto's ruling last week — dismissing an appeal from a shipping company that wanted to transfer the court battle from Canada to South Korea, the place where the silver originated.

Two arms of the security company Brink's — which was hired to transport the silver from Korea to the United States via Canada — are suing the shipping and logistics companies subcontracted to move the freight.

Those companies have denied any wrongdoing — pointing to other links in the chain of firms that brought the precious cargo by sea to Vancouver and by rail to Montreal, where it sat in a CN yard until Jan. 20, 2020, the day the container was released upon the provision of a protected passcode.

According to the court proceedings, the 18,276.02 kilograms of silver ingots were worth $10,262,242.37 US — the amount Brink's paid out to its customer after the theft.

Now Brink's wants to collect that money from the companies which it claims are liable.

The court pleadings are as tangled as the world of maritime movement — but underlying the case is a classic heist pulled off by pirates brandishing an email in place of swords.

Aalto's judgment says the shipping giant Maersk ultimately moved the cargo from Korea to Canada. Another firm — Binex — was to act as consignee, a shipping term for the company to whom goods are officially sent or delivered.

"Maersk generated and released a pickup code to the consignee, Binex, without which the CN railyard could not release the cargo," Aalto wrote.