More than $1 million was stolen from an armoured truck late last year, Toronto police said on Monday as they pressed for information about a suspect in the brazen robbery.
Toronto police released security footage on Monday of a man they believe rented a U-Haul van that three suspects used to escape the robbery on Nov. 18, 2011.
"We believe this individual is going to be the link that leads us to the perpetrators involved in this ambush," Staff. Insp. Mike Earl said at a press conference.
"This individual is either a pawn duped into renting the vehicle … or he could be as high up as the mastermind behind this whole operation."
The truck was ambushed by a group of organized thieves on Grangeway Avenue, in Scarborough, police said.
Two Garda workers were filling a Royal Bank ATM with cash when they were jumped by three suspects, police said.
They were ordered to the ground at gunpoint, at which time police say more than $1 million in cash was taken before the suspects fled.
Police also say the guards' Glock 17 handguns were taken during the robbery and remain missing.
The Hold-Up Squad says the suspects were well organized and dressed in dark clothing.
The suspects fled the scene in a U-Haul moving van that had its licence plates concealed.
The U-Haul was recovered in Scarborough a few weeks after the robbery and Earl says some "evidence" was found inside the vehicle that connected it to the crime.
Earl said police believe the suspect they are hunting rented the U-Haul vehicle and may have been involved in the robbery.
Police say the suspect used a stolen identity and credit card to rent the U-Haul, and allege the suspect has used the taken identity in the past.
"It is very unusual for us to have a rental vehicle utilized in an armoured car robbery," Earl said.
"First of all we don't have a lot of armoured car robberies, thank God, in Toronto. And to rent a vehicle as the getaway vehicle is very unusual."
The suspect is described as a white male between 40 and 50 years of age.
