The Logista premises located on rue Pierre-et-Marie-Curie in the industrial area of Ludres, bordering the A33 motorway, are rather discreet. The warehouse is surrounded by a fence. From the outside, no sign indicates the presence of this replenishment platform intended to supply tobacconists from several departments of the Grand Est.
Last November, a heavy truck parked on the site and loaded with cartons of cigarettes, had been robbed of part of its load. For damage estimated at more than 200,000 €.
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Hindered victims
Around 10 p.m. Thursday evening, it was an incomparable attack that targeted society, a veritable commando operation carried out by at least five armed and masked individuals.
The attackers managed to break into the premises, most likely at the delivery docks after shearing the fence. They then neutralized five people. Molested, shackled at the wrists and relieved of their cell phones to prevent them from raising the alarm, the victims were then held in respect by one of the members of the commando.
The sequestration enabled “four other criminals”, specifies François Pérain, public prosecutor of Nancy, to undertake the loading of pallets of cigarettes aboard a heavy truck at the quay, “equipped with false license plates”.
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Face-to-face with the police
Until then, everything seemed to go as planned for the robbers who, with regard to the operating mode and the logistics at their disposal, acted in an organized band. Still, grains of sand were going to stop this apparently well-oiled night raid.
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The intervention of witnesses from a neighboring company disrupted the commando while Logista’s alarm system and the call from the surveillance company triggered the engagement of all available police patrols on Nancy and its metropolitan area.
First responder to this flagrant crime, a crew from the Anti-Crime Brigade (BAC) managed to arrest the individual in charge of monitoring the victims when he “tried to climb the perimeter fence to flee”, specifies François Pérain.
Four accomplices fled in two separate vehicles. Without worrying about the police who, at the risk of their lives, were on their way to block their way. A police officer also failed to be struck but escaped the collision “thanks to an avoidance maneuver”.
A priori, “no shot was fired”, according to witnesses shocked by this attack worthy of a scenario of police thriller.
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The fugitives lose control on the RN 4
The fugitives then entered the highway at high speed, taking all the risks despite a flat tire. In their wake, a procession of police cars, screaming sirens. Officials from the Lorraine-Alsace motorway CRS in Champigneulles were also hired to try to slow down motorway traffic in order to force one of the two crazy cars which was still in sight to slow down. In vain.
Foot on the floor, the duo chased ran on the A31 in the direction of Paris to continue by the national 4. A dangerous ride of about 70 km, to the Meuse, before the car of the fugitives – stolen in the month of May in Tremblay (93) – do a road trip between Ligny-en-Barrois and Ménil-la-Horgne. End of the run.
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Arrests in the Paris region
Placed in police custody, the two men joined their accomplice arrested shortly before, in Ludres. Friday morning, two other individuals who, it seems, were also part of the operation ludréenne, were arrested in their turn, in Seine-Saint-Denis (93).
In total, “five suspects are currently in police custody,” said François Pérain. The investigations are just beginning and will take place over a period of 96 hours due to the organized gang. “Judicial information could be opened Monday,” said the prosecutor.
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