A vast parallel network of gold trade has been dismantled by the Research Section of the Gendarmerie of Dijon and the Central Office for the fight against itinerant delinquency (OCLDI) in Côte d'Or, in Marne, Jura and Bouches-du-Rhône. Twenty suspects were arrested and tens of kilos of precious metal seized.
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Millions of euros of bullion
The criminals sold gold stolen throughout France: rings, bracelets, necklaces, or even jewelry stolen by small hands from individuals during burglaries. All these objects were sold to this vast chain of stoppers, collectors who melted stolen jewelry into small gold bars then sold to a company specialized in Germany.
In the space of a year, these criminals would have thus spent "several tens of millions of euros" of precious metal, estimated the parquet floor of the specialized inter-regional Jurisdiction of Nancy (Jirs) in a press release. In search alone, the gendarmes seized 29 kilos of gold (worth nearly 1.5 million euros), more than 100 kilos of silver powder (60,120 euros), a dozen cars and around thirty luxury watches. The network extended from the South to the North of France, from Marne to Bouches du Rhône, passing through Burgundy and the Jura.
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20 arrests, investigations still underway
20 people were arrested in several strikes between mid-May and the end of June: 11 of them indicted for "concealment in an organized gang of robberies, aggravated money laundering and participation in a criminal association with a view to the preparation of offense "and incarcerated, and three others placed under judicial control, a real stop to this pyramid scheme which laundered the spoils of thousands of burglaries.
"Investigations continue, in particular on the exploitation of the accounting documents seized during searches carried out in Germany and in Belgium", where resided a gold collector of French nationality, given to France by the Belgian authorities in execution of a European arrest warrant, said Jirs.