Six Arrested After €12 Million Armed Raid on Gold Processing Laboratory in the French Republic

A team of six suspects equipped with assault rifles and handguns employed explosives to break into a gold refining laboratory located in Lyon, France, causing light wounds to five employees during what is being called the latest high-profile daylight theft to affect the nation.

The bold operation was carried out on the afternoon of Thursday, with officers rapidly detaining the suspected perpetrators and recovering the stolen goods valued at approximately 12 million euros (£10.5M), as stated by authorities.

Five employees of Laboratoires Pourquery were slightly hurt from the blast, and three employees required hospital checks for assessment, according to regional authorities. Twenty-eight employees were at the location when the robbers attacked.

The suspects, considered career criminals, were taken into custody shortly after the incident in the adjacent municipality of the town of Vénissieux, according to investigative sources.

A woman involved who took part in the raid was also apprehended, officers confirmed.

“Six individuals who used detonations in an attack on a metals processing plant in the Lyon area were caught in the act,” the French interior minister stated online, praising officers for their “decisiveness, speed and control”.

Assault rifles, handguns and explosives were recovered as well.

The heist took place as law enforcement in France on that Thursday detained five further people, including a primary suspect, in regarding the bold theft at the Louvre.

Numerous detectives have been pursuing four thieves who utilized a lorry featuring an elevating platform and cutting equipment to break into an upper-level exhibition space at the museum on 19 October, fleeing with jewelry valued at approximately €88M.

In a different significant robbery, robbers the previous month broke into the Parisian museum of natural history, stealing gold samples estimated at exceeding $1M. A 24-year-old Chinese woman was taken into custody recently in the city of Barcelona in connection with the break-in, according to legal authorities.

The string of thefts has generated apprehension in the country regarding lax security at cultural venues and other facilities housing valuable items.