• Trafficking in stolen cars between Lille and Bordeaux has been dismantled.

  • The network was run from Lille by two women.

  • The resale of these stolen cars has claimed a hundred victims in the Bordeaux region.

In barely a month and a half, the investigations carried out by the Lille prosecutor's office led to the dismantling of a gang of criminals who trafficked in stolen vehicles between Lille and Bordeaux.

The police have already identified a hundred victims of this network.

During last August, the Lille public prosecutor's office got wind of the testimony of an inhabitant of a "town of the Lille metropolis", who was worried about an incessant ballet of large-capacity cars in the parking lot of his residence.

Investigations were quickly launched and surveillance led to the discovery of the pot aux roses.

A very structured network led by two women

The officials of the judicial police determined that two women were at the head of a "very structured organization of national scope", explains the prosecutor of Lille, Carole Etienne.

These women organized vehicle thefts and led logistics operations.

The thefts themselves were carried out by another team employed by the women firefighters.

During the two months of the investigation, these flights were daily, specifies the prosecution.

A third team, made up of two men, had hangars in the North and Pas-de-Calais where the stolen vehicles were stored and made up. Once the work was done, a large part of the cars left for the Bordeaux region to be resold to individuals. According to the prosecution, a hundred victims have already been counted for damage estimated at 1.6 million euros. The money was then laundered in structures made available by a third woman.

Last Monday, the police officers of Bordeaux and Lille carried out simultaneous actions of arrests during which 11 suspects were arrested.

All were brought before the prosecution on Friday, then indicted by an examining magistrate, in particular for counts of organized gang robbery and criminal association.

Five of them were remanded in custody and four under judicial supervision.

Miscellaneous

North: Dismantling of a car theft network between Nouvelle-Aquitaine and Belgium

Lille

North: The driver had more than a speeding ticket to blame himself

  • Justice

  • Aquitaine

  • Police

  • Investigation

  • Bordeaux

  • Lille