Gold bars, jewelry and even Napoleon stolen from the home most of the time from elderly people by false plumbers and other false police officers who scour the Paris region are never found by investigators even when the perpetrators are identified and arrested . And for good reason, as if by magic, the precious metal quickly turns into banknotes after the “work” of receivers who pass between the cracks.
Loot transformed into ingots
But this time, the wheel has turned for four men aged 45 to 62, who were indicted Monday and Tuesday by an investigating judge of the interregional jurisdiction of Paris. Two of them, including old robbery and fraudsters, were locked up and the other two were released under judicial supervision. These criminals are suspected of having since at least the beginning of the year implemented a business of receiving stolen gold from burglaries or theft of false quality committed throughout the Paris region and in the far west of France . Their loot was transformed into ingots before being sold in Germany.
The affair begins in March in Paris when investigators from the Versailles judicial police collect information on these collectors of jewelry, ingots and gold coins. The police of the intervention research brigade (BRI) follow the movements of the criminals, understand that two or three transactions take place during these weeks of surveillance. “But they were waiting for the certainty of arresting them in the act with gold and silver,” said a source familiar with the matter.
On June 17 in Saint-Saturnin (Sarthe), two men were surprised by the police when they proceeded to hand over money in a car. Emmanuel T, 56 and Pascal G, 57, are arrested and the officials get their hands on a bag containing 150,000 euros. “It was the delivery of money between the supplier of the gold and the collector who came to pay his due,” said a source close to the case. This collector is not unknown to the justice system and the police. In 1999, he was already implicated in a former theft case, involving stockbrokers in Paris.
They deny concealment and speak of “neglect”
He is close to a clan of Travelers, well known and from Montreuil and Bagnolet (Seine-Saint-Denis). This 50-year-old was also worried in 2004, in a case of concealment of jewelry, coming from burglaries perpetrated by thieves from Eastern Europe.
At the same time, the PJ police arrested a 62-year-old man at the Gare de Lyon (Paris, 12th arrondissement). This resident of Strasbourg (Bas-Rhin) carries in his luggage around 150,000 euros of gold in the form of ingots and coins. And a search of his home still makes it possible to get hold of precious metal. Last Monday, a fourth accomplice was arrested at his home in the Paris region. The four men were placed in police custody at the premises of the Versailles judicial police.
During their hearings, the suspects denied any form of concealment of theft. These men who have opened gold buying and selling companies assure that it is by simple negligence that the ingots and coins have not been declared. The continuation of the investigations should make it possible to better understand where this gold comes from and to identify the gangs of thieves who supplied the receivers.
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