The amount of the damage – more than €1 million – but also the number of incidents, in six western departments, and the profile of the suspects: it is an extraordinary investigation that the Breton gendarmes concluded, to fall an organized gang, specialized in “home-jackings”. This team “supplying in particular criminal structures in Nantes, Rennes and Paris is involved in the theft of 76 vehicles over the last three months”, details Frédéric Teillet, public prosecutor of Rennes.
On the legal side, the thread of the ball was caught by the gendarmes of the Guichen brigade (35), near Rennes, when they arrested a driver at the wheel of a stolen car, after a banal refusal to comply, October 17, 2024. “Inside his vehicle, several stolen objects were found and made it possible to establish links with various home-jackings having affected departments in the far west,” specifies the Rennes prosecutor's office. An investigation is then opened, led by the Rennes gendarmerie research section, in co-referral with the Montfort-sur-Meu (35) and Saint-Nazaire (44) research brigades for acts of theft organized gang, organized gang concealment and criminal associations.
Five suspects in the viewfinder
The regional working group formed first identified five suspects, who stole vehicles to fuel banditry in Nantes, Rennes and Paris. The investigations allow the gendarmes to trace the alleged sponsor: “several thefts were directly ordered by this individual, incarcerated, and who communicates by encrypted messaging,” specifies the prosecutor.
Thieves are careful, and change their accommodation constantly
Thieves always act at night. They enter the victims' homes by tearing off the cylinder from the front door lock then summarily search the home to steal the keys to the targeted vehicle. “At the margins, jewelry and multimedia are stolen from the opportunity. »Thieves are cautious, and change their accommodation constantly. The investigators nevertheless managed to locate them, in mid-January, in Morbihan. They were arrested by the PSIG of Saint-Nazaire during a legal operation launched on January 20, 2025 “while these criminals had just stolen a Porsche Cayenne vehicle in the night in Ille-et-Vilaine, in La Mézière”.
-Sponsor and receiver
Two other individuals, one of whom was detained at the Argentan remand center (61) and the other residing in Saint-Nicolas de Redon (44), were also arrested with the support of the PSIG of Chateaubriand, Vitré, Redon and Laval. The investigations make it possible to implicate them as sponsors and receivers. The searches carried out on six sites in Morbihan, Loire Atlantique and Ille-et-Vilaine led to the seizure of four stolen vehicles including two Porsche Cayennes, several dozen license plates, around twenty stolen vehicle keys, identity documents belonging to victims of vehicle theft, cash, jewelry, a jammer and a beacon detector.
The gendarmes also seized narcotics, 1.9 kg of cannabis resin and 190 grams of cocaine, and stolen professional tools. The five in custody, “unfavorably known to the justice system” in the words of the prosecutor, will be judged for these facts by the Rennes criminal court on March 20, 2025. They were referred on January 22, 2025 to the courthouse by decision of the Rennes parquet floor. Four were incarcerated and one placed under judicial supervision.
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