Six Arrested Following 12 Million Euro Heist on Gold Refining Lab in the French Republic
Six armed perpetrators carrying high-powered firearms employed explosives to force entry into a gold refining laboratory located in the city of Lyon, slightly injuring five staff members during what is being called the most recent prominent daytime heist to hit the nation.
The audacious robbery was carried out on Thursday late morning, with police forces quickly arresting the individuals believed responsible and recovering the stolen goods valued at approximately 12 million euros (£10.5 million), officials reported.
Five workers of Laboratoires Pourquery sustained minor injuries as a result of the detonation, and three employees required hospital checks for evaluation, officials confirmed. Twenty-eight employees were at the location when the robbers attacked.
The individuals, considered career criminals, were arrested soon afterwards in the neighboring community of the town of Vénissieux, according to investigative sources.
A woman involved involved in the raid was also apprehended, a police source indicated.
“Six suspects who used detonations in an assault targeting a gold refining facility in Lyon were apprehended red-handed,” the French interior minister declared on social media, praising officers for their “decisiveness, speed and control”.
Assault rifles, handguns and explosives were also confiscated.
The robbery occurred as law enforcement in France on Thursday apprehended five additional individuals, including a primary suspect, in relation to the bold raid on the Louvre museum.
Dozens of investigators have been searching for four thieves who used a vehicle with a hydraulic lift and cutting tools to break into an upper-level exhibition space at the museum on the nineteenth of October, making off with ornaments assessed at around €88 million.
In a separate high-profile case, robbers the previous month broke into the Natural History Museum in Paris, making off with gold samples worth over $1 million. A woman from China, aged 24 was apprehended in the current month in Barcelona in regarding the theft, officials confirmed.
The string of thefts has sparked worry in France regarding lax security at cultural venues and other facilities holding high-value objects.
