Three "
very experienced thieves
" who for years robbed first-class passengers in TGVs between Paris, Nice and Geneva were arrested and imprisoned, after having amassed loot estimated at 400,000 euros, we learned Thursday, September 15 from a police source.
The members of this "
team of very seasoned and very seasoned thieves
" boarded, with tickets, in first-class cars on the TGV lines traversing the Rhône valley and the Côte d'Azur, explained the head of the departmental security of the Bouches-du-Rhône, David Brugère, during a press conference.
The criminals then robbed their neighbours, searching or seizing luggage left unattended.
Already known to the police
It was a theft filmed at Aix TGV station at the end of April 2022 that put the investigators on the trail of this team made up of two thieves and a receiver.
In the images, the thief steals 50,000 euros worth of jewelry from a briefcase located under the seat of his neighbor, who did not realize anything at the time.
After an investigation lasting more than four months, the police finally reconstructed the modus operandi of the three men, already known to the police and convicted of theft and concealment, with the help of the railway police and security. trains.
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The three men admitted to having been involved in these thefts for five or six years, using different schemes.
One of them, aged 57 and residing in the Nice region, used to make up a woman.
The second thief, aged 40, and the receiver, ex-owner of a luxury watch store in Paris, aged 47, live in Marseille.
137,000 euros in cash
Once their thefts had been committed, the thieves went down to the station where one of the members of the trio was waiting for them, with a previously parked car.
The police thus noted five similar operations.
During a search of an apartment in downtown Marseille, near Saint-Charles station, where the three men stored their catches, investigators seized 137,000 euros in cash.
Nearly 100,000 euros were also frozen in bank accounts.
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Hundreds of objects were also found, some of them stored for years, worth at least 150,000 euros: among this loot, Louis Vuitton bags worth up to 1,500 euros, shoes at 600 euros, leather goods, cameras or jewelry.
But also a watch with an estimated value of nearly 70,000 euros stolen in 2019 from an American tourist living in California.
The three men face up to seven years in prison.
