The Nantes criminal court sentenced Wednesday evening March 1 to five years in prison three men who disguised themselves as police officers to deceive their victims, most often elderly people.
The three defendants, a 55-year-old father, his 31-year-old son and a third 34-year-old man, married to the niece of the first, were found guilty of aggravated theft and transporting a weapon.
These thefts were committed between July and October 2022 in various municipalities in Loire-Atlantique (La Baule, Pornichet, Vertou, Saint-Herblain, etc.) and Maine-et-Loire, mainly to the detriment of the elderly.
The modus operandi was always the same: the thieves, provided with a fake professional police card, an armband or a cap, showed up at the home of their victims pretending that they wanted to prevent burglaries.
They then seized their possessions (jewellery, cash, guns, etc.) by trickery but also sometimes by force.
Throughout the hearing, the three defendants, from the Traveler community and in pre-trial detention since the end of November 2022, firmly denied the facts.
Their lawyers pointed to the
"many inconsistencies"
in the investigation and pleaded for release for most of the charges.
“We wanted to make a major file of an investigation which concerns only a small number of facts”
, told AFP Me Gwendoline Tenier, lawyer for the father and son, saying to herself “extremely shocked by the severity of the requisitions”.
19, 9 and 20 convictions on their criminal record
The public prosecutor had requested sentences of 8 to 10 years in prison against the three authors, denouncing their
“dangerous”
character because of their
“old”
roots in delinquency and
“without any regard for the most vulnerable people in our society. »
.
The three defendants had respectively 19, 9 and 20 convictions on their criminal records.
One of the victims, an 83-year-old woman, attended the hearing.
In August 2022, the fake cops snatched a diamond ring from her finger, doused her with cologne and stole a gold necklace.
“It was a shock but I have a lot of sadness for the people in this box, some of whom cannot read or write.
Why so much difference between their life and mine?
, she told AFP.