The trial of six men arrested in 2017 after the robbery of a van in Switzerland, representing a record loot of 40 million Swiss francs, is due to open on Monday January 22 before the Assize Court in Lyon, with half of the accused on the run.
Faced last year with the absence of these three accused under judicial supervision, the court decided to postpone the proceedings and issued an arrest warrant against the absentees considered to be "
deliberately on the run
".
Already in November 2021, the trial was postponed for the first time, one of the defendants having contracted Covid-19.
The court then considered it “
necessary to try the six accused together
”.
The criminals, mostly from the Lyon region, were arrested in a villa near Annecy (Haute-Savoie) a few hours after the nighttime attack on a cash-in-transit van, in the canton of Vaud, between Geneva and Lausanne, May 24, 2017.
Known to the courts
The six men were arrested in possession of the loot, consisting of bank notes of different currencies piled up in bags, four gold bars, as well as several thousand precious stones, for a total value estimated at more than 40 million Swiss francs (or some 42.3 million euros at the current rate).
Aged 39 to 54, most are already known to the courts.
They are being tried in particular for “
organized gang theft with a weapon
” and “
kidnapping and sequestration
” of the two cash conveyors, for this attack carried out with assault rifles.
Two of them were previously sentenced in Geneva in 2013 to five and seven years of imprisonment for “
brigandage
”.
A third has already been convicted for similar acts in France.
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Specific information
This case is part of a series of spectacular attacks on cash transport conveyors attributed to Lyon banditry, perpetrated in Switzerland.
Over the past eight years, at least eight robberies or attempts have been committed in different Swiss cantons.
Often, criminals have benefited from information on the route and security systems of vans traveling at night, opening a debate in Switzerland on the security measures to be implemented.
Friday, a man who participated in the robbery of an armored van in Switzerland in 2018 with the taking of the daughter of one of the conveyors hostage was sentenced to 12 years in prison by the Assize Court in Lyon.
The case involving a former conveyor had already been judged in March 2023, leading to several convictions.
The recently judged case was disjoined due to the defendant's state of health.
"In the act"
The arrests in flagrante delicto carried out after the robbery in the Canton of Vaud represented a great success for the research and intervention brigade (BRI) of the Lyon judicial police.
Cross-checks had in fact made it possible to detect the presence of the suspects in France a few hours after the attack on the van of the Loomis company - which became a civil party.
Thanks to several months of surveillance launched on the basis of intelligence, the anti-gang brigade had in fact identified several boxes and especially a villa considered as a possible fallback base, in Chavanod, near Annecy.
This is where the gang was arrested.
In addition to the loot, several weapons were found on site, including five assault rifles and various accessories used in the robbery.
DNA fingerprints of several suspects were found on the seized items.
The accused face a maximum penalty of thirty years of criminal imprisonment and life imprisonment for those who are legally repeat offenders.
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Two defendants served up to four years in pre-trial detention in connection with this case.
They were released after the maximum detention periods had expired.
The debates are scheduled over six days, until Monday January 29.