A burning vehicle, an injured customs officer, and heavy resources deployed to find the fugitive. The scene took place shortly before midnight on the night of Wednesday to Thursday, on the RN 12 near La Queue-lez-Yvelines (Yvelines). It had started a little earlier near Dreux, in the neighboring department of Eure-et-Loir, where the customs service had set up a checkpoint at a roundabout on the RN 154 .
Despite the officers' orders, a motorist refused to stop. Worse, he accelerates in front of the customs officers who have just time to deploy two harrows in order to puncture the vehicle's tires. But more is needed to stop the driver who decides to take the national road towards Versailles and Paris.
The customs officers chase after him on this relatively little-used road at this late hour for a chase lasting almost 25 km. The fugitive's car is hit. Too much to go further. A wheel ends up catching fire and forcing him to stop.
While the vehicle burst into flames, the man decided to flee on foot with the customs officers on his heels, supported by the gendarmerie who had come as reinforcements. A major system is then deployed in this central sector of Yvelines. A helicopter is even used to try to follow the trail of the fugitive.
It is currently unknown whether the operation led to the arrest of the suspect and the reasons which pushed him to force the control. An investigation is underway. Injured in one leg in the chase, a customs agent was treated by firefighters and then transferred to hospital. He has to undergo an operation there.
