An armored cash transport van was attacked mid-morning on Thursday by men armed with Kalashnikovs who fired in the center of Grenoble, without hitting anyone, before fleeing.
Two people were slightly injured, notably by broken glass, and the three conveyors, “shocked”are in ” security “according to Grenoble prosecutor Eric Vaillant.
The cash transport vehicle belongs to the Loomis company, and “nothing was stolen”declared to AFP Kader Bengueche, national CGT delegate of the company, who was able to speak to the agents targeted while they recovered the funds in the city’s businesses.
The attack took place shortly after 10:00 a.m., at the intersection of two large, busy avenues in the city center of Grenoble. “At least two vehicles blocked” the cash transport van and there was an “exchange of gunfire,” said a police source.
“The officers who were in the van opened fire and managed to escape” with the van and thus escape the attackers, the Grenoble prosecutor told AFP at the scene of the attack.
“By fleeing, the criminals caused accidents, so we had two minor injuries, a person who was in a vehicle and a person who caught shards of glass. Three people who were nearby were shocked but not injured”according to the magistrate.
“Videos (of the attack) began to circulate. We see a criminal armed with a long weapon, probably a Kalashnikov type”he added. The agents “are safe today. They are shocked but not hurt”.
«Rafalés»
According to the account given by the three agents of the cash transport company to trade unionist Kader Bengueche, their armored van was blocked at the front by a white unmarked van which was set on fire and at the rear by a Mercedes sedan.
“Immediately the robbers burst into the sides of the vehicle, and the conveyors responded through a loophole in the van. The conveyor driver then released the vehicle” who blocked his van in front “to quickly get to the gendarmerie” the nearest one, he detailed.
Present alongside the prosecutor, the prefect of Isère, Louis Augier, assured that “all means are being used to catch the attackers, dozens of police officers and gendarmes are mobilized”.
A vehicle “related” with the attack the van was found burned in the town of Pont-de-Claix, located in the southern suburbs of Grenoble, the gendarmerie told AFP.
A blatant investigation for “armed robbery by an organized gang and criminal conspiracy with a view to committing a crime”was entrusted to the Specialized Interregional Jurisdiction (JIRS) of Lyon, Lyon prosecutor Thierry Dran told AFP.
“We all dove”
According to the owner of a business located across the street from the scene of the attack, “when we heard the gunshots, we all dived”. “Everyone stood under the counters. By the time we figured out what was going on, it was over.”he told AFP by telephone.
The exchange of fire lasted “one to two minutes” and the police are “arrived quickly” on site, he added. “No one is prepared for this. The feeling is that everything is permitted. »
This attack occurs in a context of tensions in the Alpine metropolis, after a summer marked by a series of violence and shootings between drug traffickers. Since the start of the year, around twenty episodes of gun violence have been recorded, and the authorities no longer hesitate to talk about “gang war”.
At the beginning of September, Lilian Dejean, a municipal employee of Grenoble, was shot and killed, while he was responding to the site of a road accident, by a man still on the run and known to the courts in particular for violence and trafficking. of narcotics.
