One hundred and thirty gendarmes and police officers, the GIGN branch in Nantes, the PSPG in Chinon
the OCLDI branch in Rennes and the CRS 33 were mobilized, Friday September 27, for the arrest of three suspects involved in a series of organized gang thefts.
This large-scale deployment was explained by the desire to invest, simultaneously, in three Traveler camps located in Rezé and Saint-Herblain (44). Which was done on Friday at dawn. “The searches made it possible to seize €14,000, as well as objects linked to the facts,” specifies Renaud Gaudeul, Nantes prosecutor.
The vehicles sometimes came from homejackings
For several months, a preliminary investigation was opened, and entrusted to the Saint-Nazaire research brigade and the Nantes research section. Multiple car-ramming heists were, in fact, carried out over a large territory, covering Pays-de-la-Loire, Brittany, Poitou-Charentes and Centre-Val-de-Loire. The investigators very quickly became convinced that it was one and the same team of criminals. Local shops and tobacconists were invariably targeted. The vehicles used sometimes came from home-jackings and were set on fire following the journeys, in order to erase all traces.
All in a state of recidivism
The raids were carried out at night. In the video surveillance images, the perpetrators were wearing gloves and their faces were hidden. The revenues of the businesses were stolen each time, as well as various objects, but the losses were significant due to the damage caused by this method of operation. The first investigations by the gendarmes led to the opening of a judicial investigation on September 10.
Arrested on Friday, three men aged 31, 32 and 33 were indicted on Monday on charges of theft and attempted theft by an organized gang, as well as destruction of other people’s property by dangerous means by an organized gang. All three are repeat offenders. They were immediately incarcerated. Around thirty facts are attributable to them, including 21 in Loire-Atlantique and at least one in Ille-et-Vilaine.
Specialized gendarmerie protection platoon
