Toronto Pearson gold heist suspect sentenced in the U.S. for smuggling guns

Durante King-Mclean - the man who drove the getaway truck in the biggest gold theft in Canadian history - has pleaded guilty to a U.S. firearms charge.

Durante King-Mclean, a Brampton, Ont., man charged in the infamous gold heist at Toronto Pearson International Airport, has been sentenced to more than 13 years in the United States for attempting to smuggle guns into Canada.

In a courtroom in Harrisburg, Pa., on Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Jennifer P. Wilson handed King-Mclean the 160-month prison sentence for conspiring to illegally traffic firearms.

The 27-year-old pleaded guilty to that charge on May 14, 2025, about a month after he was accused of driving off with roughly $20 million in stolen gold bars after a heist at Toronto Pearson airport.

A traffic stop in Franklin County involving King-Mclean on Sept. 2, 2023, led to the seizure of dozens of handguns. King-Mclean was driving a rental vehicle, alone, at that time and attempted to run away after Pennsylvania State Police pulled him over.

Officers recovered 65 handguns in the vehicle’s trunk, which were all individually wrapped in socks. Of all the firearms that were recovered, two were fully automatic, 11 were reported stolen, and one had an “obliterated serial number.”

According to the U.S. Attorney’s office, King-Mclean was on his way to Canada at the time of his arrest.

In a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Middle District of Pennsylvania, officials said King-Mclean had been speaking with his co-conspirators from April 2023.

The gold heist in Toronto occurred on the evening of April 17 that year, when it is alleged King-Mclean drove the delivery truck that made off with 6,600 gold bars and a quantity of cash.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office said he had been renting an Airbnb in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., until he rented a car at the end of August and drove north towards Canada with the illegal guns in tow. They add that he “illegally entered” the U.S. soon after the gold heist and stayed there until his arrest in September, as he was making his way back up north.

“Firearms trafficking is a serious crime that puts guns in the hands of the criminals that terrorize our communities in the United States and Canada,” Eric J. DeGree for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Philadelphia said in a news release, adding that the length of King-Mclean’s sentence “reflects the seriousness of his crime.”