By all accounts, Winnipeg’s Ken Leishman was a dashing and delightful man, a nattily dressed charmer whose ever-present smile was capped by a tidy moustache.
With an IQ of 146, he was also blessed with a gifted mind. He pooled those qualities to rob banks, escape prisons and pull off what was then Canada’s greatest gold heist.
A plan masterminded by the cookware salesman from North Kildonan intercepted 12 gold bars worth $383,000 at the Winnipeg airport on March 1, 1966. Gold then was $35 an ounce, but today it’s $2,000, making the loot worth nearly $20 million if it were stolen
