Canadian police announced Thursday that they are investigating the theft of gold and other valuables estimated at more than twenty million Canadian dollars ($14.8 million) at Toronto airport over the weekend.

Local police official Stephen Duifstein explained that the gold coins and valuables arrived Monday evening by air at the airport and were then placed in a logistics warehouse, until their disappearance was later noticed.

"The container that contained these valuable pieces was stolen using illegal means inside the storage site," Duifstein told reporters.

The police official did not give any clarification about the method of theft or whether there were suspects in the case.

He told reporters that "our investigators are looking into all hypotheses," describing what happened as "very rare" and noting that this did not affect air traffic at all.

The local newspaper "Toronto Sun" reported that the theft involved more than 1.6 tons of gold, which exceeds the value of twenty million dollars that the authorities talked about.