On the one hand, burglary specialists. On the other, thugs capable of getting out of the big guns to achieve their ends. Separate teams, but linked by a booty that has attracted envy since the start of the Covid-19 crisis: tobacco. The closure of borders, the drop in road freight and therefore the difficulty of obtaining contraband cigarettes have thus transformed tobacco into “golden gold” prized by thieves and robbers.
Police and gendarmes this week put an end to the actions of two groups of alleged criminals from Ile-de-France and suspected of having recently turned to this promising niche. Six alleged riders from the Roma community were indicted this Friday, January 22 in Tours (Indre-et-Loire), and four alleged robbers from Seine-Saint-Denis were indicted on Wednesday and Thursday in Nancy (Meurthe-et-Moselle).
Balaclavas, weapons and 60,000 euros in cash
At the end of the first containment against the Covid, contraband cigarettes are rare, stocks are reduced and prices are soaring. On June 4, 2020, five men from Seine-Saint-Denis entered a Logista warehouse in Ludres (Meurthe-et-Moselle). One of the criminals is armed with a Kalashnikov and holds the five employees at bay. One of them nevertheless manages to alert the authorities. The criminals are surprised and arrested as they load pallets of cigarettes into two vehicles. They are remanded in custody, but investigators are convinced that the whole team did not fall. Six months earlier, on January 31, 2020, the same warehouse had been targeted by burglars. Fled by the BAC, the thieves had to abandon on the spot 94 boxes of cigarettes – market value, 215,000 euros – and a wave jammer used to disrupt the work of the police.
For six months, the police officers of the PJ of Nancy and the gendarmes of the Central Office for the fight against itinerant delinquency (OCLDI) therefore sought to reassemble the rest of this team made up of men in their thirties. “Handsome thugs, well known to justice and who do not hesitate to be violent if necessary”, according to a person close to the file. By working on the Ile-de-France entourage of the first arrested, the gendarmes identify seven people suspected of gravitating around the robbers.
Tuesday morning, the suspects are arrested in Seine-Saint-Denis and Seine-et-Marne. During searches, investigators discovered balaclavas, weapons and nearly 60,000 euros in cash. Four of the suspects have been indicted and jailed. “Tobacco generates a lot of money,” said a source close to the investigation. The rise in prices also leads to an increase in the number of customers ”of these stolen packages which were to be resold under cover in the district of Barbes in the north of Paris.
Targeted station stores in several regions
Barbès, the markets of the Paris region or their Stains camp in Seine-Saint-Denis, they were also the channels of concealment of the six compulsive burglars arrested Tuesday morning by the PJ of Orleans (Loiret) and the Central Office of fight against organized crime (OCLCO). The end of an investigation started in July 2020 after a lack of money in Saint-Pierre-des-Corps (Indre-et-Loire). Three men are arrested, but the Tours prosecutor’s office quickly understands that they represent only a small part of a gang that attacks the Relay and Hubiz stores located in the stations.
Between June and August 2020, no region is spared. In Ile-de-France, shops are robbed in Aulnay-sous-Bois, Bondy (Seine-Saint-Denis), at the RER station in the Roissy-Pôle area, in Ermont-Eaubonne, Enghien-les-Bains (Val-d ‘Oise), the Massy TGV station (Essonne), Versailles (Yvelines), Asnières-sur-Seine (Hauts-de-Seine)… In Paris, the stores of the Lyon Austerlitz and Saint-Lazare stations are targeted… During night raids, criminals also strike in Loiret, Aisne, Eure-et-Loir, Pas-de-Calais, Sarthe, Somme, Seine-Maritime, Cher … And even further in Saône-et-Loire, Ille-et-Vilaine and Jura. Some nights three or four stores are targeted within hours.
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In total, around fifty stores are visited for a loss of 700,000 euros. “They were targeting stations that are little used at night and little protected,” said a close to the investigation. They stole scratch games, sometimes the cash register, but above all the cartridges of tobacco which are very easy to sell and very profitable… ”The relatives of the first three burglars suspected of being arrested, housed in a camp in Stains where 80 members of the police are housed. Roma community, are closely watched. Investigators finally identify six men aged 18 to 54 and already well known to the courts. Tuesday morning, these “habitual delinquents, already known for multiple crimes and offenses in several European countries”, are arrested and placed in police custody. Charged, all were remanded in custody.
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