Fourteen people suspected of having taken part in a vast traffic of gold between France and Germany were indicted and nearly 30 kilos of the precious metal worth 1.5 million euros were seized , we learned on Friday from the Nancy Jirs.
"This illegal gold trade could reach several tens of millions of euros," said the prosecution of the specialized inter-regional jurisdiction of Nancy in a statement.
Melted jewelry
The suspects, arrested between mid-May and the end of June, were indicted for "concealment in an organized gang of thefts, aggravated money laundering and participation in a criminal association with a view to preparing crimes", said the same source. Eleven of them were placed in pre-trial detention and three under judicial supervision.
The investigation by the Research Section of the Dijon Gendarmerie and the Central Office for the fight against itinerant delinquency (OCLDI) made it possible “to dismantle a vast parallel network of gold trade in the departments of the Côte d ' However, from Marne, Jura, Bouches-du-Rhône ”, according to Jirs.
Gold collectors collected jewelry from thieves. They founded them to form ingots, then "collectors were then responsible for recovering these ingots to sell them to a gold buyout company located in Germany," she said.
Vehicles, luxury watches and cash
The searches carried out in Marne, Côte d'Or and Bouches-du-Rhône allowed the seizure of "29 kilos of gold with a market value of 1,487,032 euros and 101 kilos of silver powder of 'a market value of 60,120 euros,' she added.
Twelve vehicles with a total value of 340,000 euros, around thirty luxury watches and 121,169 euros in cash were also found by gendarmerie investigators.
"Investigations are continuing, in particular into the exploitation of the accounting documents seized during searches carried out in Germany and in Belgium", where a gold collector of French nationality resided, turned over to France by the Belgian authorities in execution of a European arrest warrant, said the court.
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