Le Figaro Marseille
This is a question which should relieve tourists and local residents who walk daily along the Vélodrome stadium in Marseille.
This Tuesday, February 6, a 40-year-old man suspected of having committed around forty violent thefts in the 8th and 10th arrondissements of the Marseille city was arrested by the police.
The accused could have acted between August 2023 and the start of the year, each time using the same modus operandi to achieve his ends.
According to a police source, the suspect most often prowled around the Vélodrome stadium in Marseille looking for vulnerable victims.
“As soon as he saw a single person, he put on his hood and took out a knife
,” explains this police source to Le
Figaro
.
The attacker acted on match nights
Under threat of a knife, the victims were then forced by the attacker to hand over their cell phones.
Some were also taken to the nearest ATM and forced to withdraw a certain amount of cash.
Significant fact: the man often acted out on match nights, not hesitating to show off his knife in the street and even in the metro station located near the stadium.
In total, he could be involved in 37 cases with similar circumstances recorded in the 8th and 10th districts of the city.
Seized of the case, the violent theft group of the local judicial police service of the Southern Division of Marseille (SLPJ) worked tirelessly in coordination with the public transport intervention and security service (SISTC) to identify this thief with a profile considered dangerous.
The descriptions provided by the
“traumatized”
victims of the events and the study of the city's video surveillance cameras led investigators to arrest the wanted individual at his home on Tuesday.
Very unfavorably known to the police and already sentenced to prison for similar acts, the accused was brought before the Marseille public prosecutor's office and placed in pre-trial detention pending his judgment, scheduled for next March.