From September 2021, home-jacking type thefts are multiplying in Calvados and Eure.
Keys to top-of-the-range vehicles are stolen from their owners at night.
Thus, 24 cars were stolen in a few months for an estimated amount of 600,000 euros.
In Lisieux, two individuals with already heavy criminal records were sentenced on Friday January 14 to three and a half years in prison, reports France Bleu.
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On December 14, 2021, the Calvados gendarmes arrested two Honfleur residents, aged 20 and 23, as well as a third 19-year-old suspect.
The modus operandi was always the same: they penetrated at night in the homes of individuals in Calvados and Eure to steal their vehicle keys, often Audis or BMWs.
They operated on command, certainly in connection with an organized gang from Rouen.
The plates were then changed and the cars disappeared.
The two thieves earned between 500 and 2000 euros per vehicle.
In a few months, they would have received 7,000 and 10,000 euros for one, between 10,000 and 15,000 euros for the other.
A first stay in prison
Friday, during their trial, the criminals explained that the idea had come to them from a stay in Évreux prison, where they had already been incarcerated for thefts.
According to them, they were forced to take action by sponsors who gave them the addresses.
The civil parties were numerous at the hearing.
“
There is a skill, a real professionalism in delinquency
”, underlined the public prosecutor, reports
Ouest-France
.
Defense attorneys lamented that the defendants had “
no word for the victims.
»