• A pedestrian crossing figurine was stolen in a village in Aisne.

  • A witness claims to have found her buried in a field near Sant-Omer.

  • A complaint was lodged with the gendarmes by the mayor of the village.

Abduction alert.

During the night from Saturday to Sunday, a pedestrian crossing figurine called Arthur, installed in the village of Coincy, in Aisne, disappeared.

A kidnapping that has not been claimed, qualified by the town hall as an act of vandalism.

If the hypothesis of a theft "by imbeciles" was put forward for a time by the mayor, Alain Arnefaux, the latest developments give this affair a much more mysterious side.

Arthur and his girlfriend Zoé were installed on either side of a pedestrian crossing to ensure the safety of the children of the town when they crossed the road to Rocourt.

But during the night from Saturday to Sunday, the little man in the red cap disappeared.

"It was not broken or torn off, the thieves took care to unbolt it before taking it away", wishes to specify the mayor of the village, adding that the object still costs 1,200 euros.

“The figurine was half buried at the edge of a field”

The elected logically thought of a bad joke on the part of local vandals, "idiots" who have already nicked a gate in the courtyard of the town hall or poured washing powder into the fountain.

Except that the figurine has never reappeared, nor been erected in a prominent place as a challenge, nor abandoned in a ditch.

So, Alain Arnefaux decided, this Wednesday, to file a complaint with the local gendarmerie.

It was at the same time that the mayor received the strange message from a man who had heard about this case on social networks.

“This gentleman was walking on a path when he came across Arthur.

He told me that the figurine was half buried on the edge of a field above Saint-Omer, between Merckeghem and Volckerinckhove, ”still surprised the chosen one.

In other words, in the northern department, 253 km from Coincy.

A complaint lodged

This information shattered all his certainties.

“This effectively excludes residents of my town.

So that raises a lot of questions,” he admits.

For him, thieves frightened by the virality of the case on the networks would have simply thrown Arthur into the wild without burying him halfway.

“Especially since it measures 1.60 m, you still have to go,” insists the mayor.

Torn between the joy of having found Arthur and the amazement of the outcome of the case, the mayor still filed his complaint.

He is now preparing to do the 500 km round trip to recover his property, “hoping he has not suffered too much”.

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  • Hauts-de-France

  • Gendarmerie

  • Picardy