Five men and a woman, aged in their twenties, were indicted, suspected of having robbed individuals at their homes, in the summer of 2020, in the Gard and Bouches-du-Rhône, a announced Monday the parquet of Nîmes.

Indicted for "thefts with weapons and in an organized gang, extortion in an organized gang, criminal conspiracy and violence", the five men were imprisoned.

Their female sidekick, indicted for the same counts, was placed under judicial control, said Estelle Meyer, the deputy prosecutor of Nîmes.

Money, jewelry and bank cards

The arrests occurred in several waves, between March and these last days, in the Bouches-du-Rhône, in Marseille, Arles and Tarascon, or in the Gard, near Nîmes. It was the Nîmes gendarmes who identified this team, suspected of attacking individuals in their homes, as during two robberies, on August 14, 2020, in Meynes and Aix-en-Provence. During these two "home-jackings", the criminals are accused of having used firearms and physically attacking at least one of the members of the families concerned. In the case of the attack perpetrated in the Gard village of Meynes, a farmer was even shot and wounded.

Referring to "four facts of a criminal nature committed in four days, in the summer of 2020", the deputy prosecutor of Nîmes, Estelle Meyer stressed Monday that these "individuals were increasing in a very disturbing way". This gang, which "was looking for money, jewelry to sell, bank cards", would have made "many victims, injuries and psychological trauma".

Two of the men involved in this case "were on the run when they committed these attacks," said Colonel Bertrand Michel, head of the Nîmes research section.

Two days after entering, armed, in a supermarket in Eyguilles, near Aix-en-Provence, they are suspected of having attacked a pianist on August 13, thinking of stealing his stamp at the end of the concert he had just given at La-Roque-d'Anthéron.

In total "the loot of this team amounts to a few thousand euros, mainly cash and jewelry," said Bertrand Michel.

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  • Languedoc-Roussillon

  • Nimes

  • Robbery

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  • Justice