Each time, the perpetrators of the meeting thefts used the same operating method.
The victim placed an ad on Leboncoin.fr, an appointment was made to carry out the transaction, often in a parking lot, the trio of thieves arrived in an SUV, often the same model, but instead of giving the money to the seller, the young people threatened the victim with a knife to leave with the loot.
This is the technique used in Villepreux (Yvelines).
After making contact for the sale of a PlayStation 5, an appointment is made in the Carrefour de Villepreux parking lot.
At knifepoint, the victim handed over the console and went to withdraw money from the ATM.
A complaint was filed on January 4 and very quickly, investigators from the Plaisir police station recovered other complaints for acts committed in Yvelines, in Montigny-le-Bretonneux, Viroflay and Houdan, but also La Garenne-Colombes (Hauts- de-Seine) and Villejuif (Val-de-Marne).
In total, more than ten complaints are grouped together in the same file.
Four people identified by the police
“The method was the same with a robbery at knifepoint, the profile descriptions were similar, we sometimes had the same model of car, a partial plate indication,” says a source close to the case.
In less than ten days, investigators from the Plaisir police station identified four people: three men and a woman.
The latter, owner of the car, is quickly exonerated when her partner explains that she regularly sublets the SUV to amortize the leasing of the vehicle: a Volkswagen T-Cross.
Meticulous, the latter keeps the rental dates in a notebook with the description of the people.
A man, owner of an email address used by the thieves, will also be cleared of suspicion.
Two 21-year-old men will finally be arrested in Yvelines, in Trappes and Élancourt.
The police will seize four PS5s and as many iPhones from their homes, equipment intended to be easily resold.
The Versailles court will sentence the perpetrators in immediate appearance to 2 years in prison for one, and to a year and a half in prison for the other, each of the sentences being accompanied by a one-year suspended sentence and probation. test.
Both were released while awaiting their summons before the sentencing judge who could decide, for example, whether to wear an electronic bracelet.