- Thirty people are on trial for their involvement in a network of theft of bank cards.
- The hearing was relocated outside the courthouse, too small for the occasion.
- The trial is scheduled to last three weeks at Life.
It is an exceptional trial which opens this Tuesday in Saint-Nazaire. The criminal court will look into the actions of the "blue card gang", named after this organized gang that raged everywhere in France between June 2014 and December 2017. Given the large number of defendants (33) and victims (231), the hearing will last three weeks. Above all, it was relocated outside the courthouse, which was too small. It is the underwater base of the city, more precisely the Life, an ordinary room intended for concerts and exhibitions of contemporary art, which will welcome it.
More than 271 thefts of bank cards linked to the "gang", for a total loss of 220,000 euros, were established by the investigators, whose work began in 2017. Most of the suspects are of Romanian nationality and domiciled in Loire-Atlantique . They acted on markets and fairs in the West of France, sometimes even on major events such as the Festival interceltique de Lorient, Les Vieilles Charrues or the big clearance sale in Lille.
14,000 euros in development costs
"Their operating mode was always the same," explains Damien Blouin, lieutenant-colonel of the Loire-Atlantique gendarmerie. They chose crowded places, waited for a victim to come to a vending machine, managed to locate their code, then took advantage of the crowd to steal the card. They would then make fraudulent withdrawals. The well-organized network was "completely dismantled" after "cross-checking" between several gendarmerie services and the central office for combating itinerant delinquency. Eight defendants are currently in pre-trial detention. Five will not be in Saint-Nazaire because they are on the run and actively sought.
Made available by the town hall of Saint-Nazaire, the Life can accommodate up to 3,000 people. The cost of fitting out the room, borne by the Ministry of Justice, is 9,000 euros, to which must be added 5,000 euros for rental, specifies the city. The filtering of entrances will be ensured by the security service of the court, the accompaniment of defendants by the prison service, the security of the room (day and night) by the national police.
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- Gendarmerie
- Bank card
- Saint Nazaire
- Justice
- Nantes
- Flight